Creating Regenerative Cities - 9780415724463

Large modern cities have effectively declared their independence from nature. But while they cover only three to four percent of the world’s land surface, the ecological footprints of cities cover the entire globe. The world's environmental resources are widely recognised to be drastically overstretched and depleting. To meet the aspirations of developing and developed societies across the world, something needs to change.

Mere 'sustainable development' is not enough. The planning of new cities, as well as the retrofit of existing cities, needs to undergo a profound paradigm shift. Instead of simply using up resources more sustainably, cities need to become producers as well as consumers of those resources. We need to move away from linear understandings of sustainability, and make cities virtuous cycles when it comes to resources.

Creating Regenerative Cities is a concise, solution-oriented manual for creating regenerative cities. A wide range of technical, management and policy solutions already exist, but so far implementation has been too slow and too little, in large part because the kinds of holistic approaches needed are alien to fragmented and process driven urban policy making and governance. Herbert Girardet's experience as an ecologist, thinker and consultant to cities around the world over 30 years has created this unique combination of tried and tested best practice with the fundamental shift needed in the way we think about our cities.