Steering Sustainability in an Urbanising World : Policy, Practice and Performance

This book approaches the key challenges of achieving urban sustainability in a holistic way. It brings together academics and practitioners to analyze the complexity and interdependence of principles, models, processes and practices of sustainability in a range of integrated sectors to identify which policies are most effective in encouraging, enabling and enforcing social change.

Sustainability has become the key challenge for urban planners, housing and infrastructure policy makers. Citizens are increasingly encouraged to live more compactly; in denser urban developments, to use less water and other natural resources and to choose public transport. While councils, government agencies and private business invest in a broad range of promotions offering discounts on sustainable products and services, uptake has been slow and the impacts marginal at a time when environmental stresses suggest that we must act fast. This book examines this pressing problem in a holistic way, discussing broad-scale sustainability policies and programmes for achieving sustainable urban futures. It brings together academics and practitioners to analyze the complexity and interdependence of principles, models, processes and practices of sustainability in a range of integrated sectors as well as the establishment and maintenance of sustainable physical infrastructure in cities.