SUSTAINABLE URBANISM AND BEYOND: Rethinking Cities for the Future

The
city in the twenty-first century faces major challenges, including
social and economic stratification, wasteful consumption of resources,
transportation congestion, and environmental degradation. More than half
of the world’s population lives in cities and major metropolitan areas,
and in the next two decades the number of city dwellers is estimated to
reach five billion. This puts enormous pressures on transportation
systems, housing stock, and infrastructure such as energy, waste, and
water, which directly influences the emissions of greenhouse gases.
As
the long emergency awaits us, urgent questions remain: How will our
cities survive? How can we combat and reconcile urban growth with
sustainable use of resources for future generations to thrive? Where and
how urbanism comes into the picture and what “sustainable” urban forms
can do in light of these events are some of the issues Sustainable
Urbanism and Beyond explores. With more than sixty essays, including
contributions by Andrés Duany, Saskia Sassen, Peter Newman, Douglas
Farr, Henry Cisneros, Peter Hall, Sharon Zukin,  Peter Eisenman, and
others, this book is a unique perspective on architecture, urban
planning, environmental and urban design, exploring ways for raising
quality of life and the standard of living in a new modern era by
creating better and more viable places to live.