'One Planet' Cities: Sustaining Humanity within Planetary Limits

by David Thorpe (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2019

  $48.08

  By 2100, around 84% of the estimated 11.2 billion people on Earth are expected to live in cities. Yet even now humanity is consuming the equivalent of 1.8 Earths. Can future humanity live within planetary limits? If so, what might tomorrow's cities be like?

  This book compares the standards being trailed for sustainable cities and offers criteria for which a community might act. Utilising interviews with important societies, including the Global Footprint Network, World Futures Council and the WWF, alongside chief players, including mayors of key cities, the book critiques 'sustainable city' initiatives supported by pan-global organisations, asking if they are sufficient to meet the challenge. The book draws on case studies from across the globe, including the UK, US, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, China and Columbia.

  Cities consume resources from the rest of the world, and unless those resources are both replenished in their place of origin and reclaimed for reuse in closed loop systems, then cities cannot survive indefinitely. This book concludes by charting a potential path for cities to follow to move towards a genuinely sustainable pathway for the management of cities of the future and their supply chains.

  This book will be of great interest to practitioners and policymakers involved in urban environments and sustainability, alongside students of the built environment, urban planning, environmental policy and energy.