Connecting cities and oceans (book)

Blue Urbanism

The consequences of our emotional disconnect from oceans have been severe: the marine ecosystems that make up 70% of our planet are imperiled as never before. Restoring the integrity of the oceans will require unprecedented effort, but Blue Urbanism highlights the promise of urban areas around the world that have begun to prioritize marine health, such as efforts to discover  the amazing marine biodiversity near cities, new prototypes of wind- and solar-powered shipping vessels, urban aquaponics systems and buildings and parks that connect with the ocean visually and structurally. This book offers an impassioned argument for the need to harness the political, economic, and emotional power of our growing cities to benefit the ocean, offering a comprehensive look at the challenges and great potential for urban areas to integrate ocean health into their policy and planning goals.

Helping communities to save energy (report)

 Smart Communities: Working together to save energy?

Smart Communities was a three and a half year 'behaviour change' community energy project. In broad terms, the Smart Communities findings support the contemporary policy focus on demand-side action, community energy and energy consumption feedback. At the same time, the project highlights the long term and challenging nature of these strategies, and the implications of this for the funding of demand-side community energy. The findings emphasis a lack of 'energy know-how' among householders as a key constraint on change, and identifies ways in which more widespread know-how might be developed. The project also emphasises the benefits of action on energy within a primary school, and the ways in which this prompts engagement with energy in the home. 

Reslience in peri-urban settings (online)

Understanding Peri-urban Sustainability: The role of the resilience approach

This paper is concerned with how resilience approaches can be used as a practical tool in helping to understand complex systems in an urbanising world and how resilience approaches can contribute to initiatives to enhance environmental integrity and social justice. Some key debates around differing understandings and uses of the term resilience are summarised, and criticisms discussed. In-depth case studies demonstrate opportunities for the use of resilience approaches as an integral part of initiatives that seek to enhance sustainability in dynamic urbanising situations.

A critique of eco-cities (#journal)

Eco-urbanism and the Eco-city, or, Denying the Right to the City?

This paper critically analyses the construction of eco-cities as technological fixes to concerns over climate change, Peak Oil, and other scenarios in the transition towards “green capitalism”. It argues for a critical engagement with new-build eco-city projects, first by highlighting the inequalities which mean that eco-cities will not benefit those who will be most impacted by climate change. Second, the paper investigates the foundation of eco-city projects on notions of crisis and scarcity. Third, there is a need to critically interrogate the mechanisms through which new eco-cities are built, including the land market, reclamation, dispossession and “green grabbing”. Lastly, a sustained focus is needed on workers geographies in and around these “emerald cities”, especially the temporary settlements housing the millions of workers who move from one new project to another.

Green Cities of Europe (book)

Green Cities of Europe: Global Lessons on Green Urbanism 

In the absence of federal leadership, localities are stepping forward to address critical  problems like climate change, urban sprawl, and polluted water and air. Green Cities of Europe draws on the world's best examples of sustainability to show how cities can become greener and more liveable.