Existing patterns of urbanization are unsustainable in the long run. Current development practices consume enormous amounts of land and resources, damage local ecosystems, produce pollutants, create huge inequalities between groups of people and undermine local community and quality of life. Unfortunately planning has itself led to many unsustainable development practices. Planning for Sustainability presents a straightforward, systematic analysis of how more sustainable cities and towns can be brought about. It does so in a highly readable manner that considers in turn each scale of planning: international, national, regional, municipal, neighbourhood, site and building. In the process it illustrates how sustainability initiatives at these different scales interrelate and how an overall framework can be developed for more livable communities.

Planning for Sustainability: Creating Livable, Equitable and Ecological Communities

Politics & Social Sciences

Wheeler, Stephen M.

Social Sciences

Routledge

Planning for Sustainability

Business & Money

Economics

Climate Change and Social Ecology: A New Perspective on the Climate Challenge

Although strategies to prevent global warming – such as by conserving energy, relying on solar and wind power, and reducing motor vehicle use – are well-known, societies have proved unable to implement these measures with the necessary speed. They have also been unwilling to confront underlying issues such as overconsumption, overpopulation, inequity, and dysfunctional political systems. Political and social obstacles have prevented the adoption of improved technologies, which would provide only a partial solution in any case if the fundamental causes of greenhouse gas emissions aren’t addressed. Climate Change and Social Ecology takes a new approach to the climate crisis, portraying global warming as a challenge of rapid social evolution. This book argues that, in order to address this impending catastrophe and bring about more sustainable development, we must focus on improving social ecology – our values, mind-sets, and social organization. Steps to do this include institutional reforms to improve democracy, educational strategies to encourage public understanding of complex issues, and measures to prevent corporations and the wealthy from shaping societies in other directions instead. This book presents a captivating vision of how to help social systems evolve toward sustainability and explores the social transformations needed for dealing with the climate crisis in the long term. It reviews the climate change strategies considered to date, presents a detailed description of a future sustainable society, and analyzes how this vision might be realized through more conscious public nurturing of our social systems. This interdisciplinary volume provides a compelling rethink of the climate crisis. Authoritative and accessible, it will be of great interest to anyone concerned about climate change and sustainability challenges and is essential reading for students, professionals, and general readers alike.

Reference

A cutting-edge, solutions-oriented analysis of how we can reimagine cities around the world to build sustainable futures. &nbsp; What would it take to make urban places greener, more affordable, more equitable, and healthier for everyone? In recent years, cities have stepped up efforts to address climate and sustainability crises. But progress has not been fast enough or gone deep enough. If communities are to thrive in the future, we need to quickly imagine and implement an entirely new approach to urban development: one that is centered on equity and rethinks social, political, and economic systems as well as urban designs. With attention to this need for structural change, Reimagining Sustainable Cities advocates for a community-informed model of racially, economically, and socially just cities and regions. The book aims to rethink urban sustainability for a new era. &nbsp; In Reimagining Sustainable Cities, Stephen M. Wheeler and Christina D. Rosan ask big-picture questions of interest to readers worldwide: How do we get to carbon neutrality? How do we adapt to a climate-changed world? How can we create affordable, inclusive, and equitable cities? While many books dwell on the analysis of problems, Reimagining Sustainable Cities prioritizes solutions-oriented thinking--surveying historical trends, providing examples of constructive action worldwide, and outlining alternative problem-solving strategies. Wheeler and Rosan use a social ecology lens and draw perspectives from multiple disciplines. Positive, readable, and constructive in tone, Reimagining Sustainable Cities identifies actions ranging from urban design to institutional restructuring that can bring about fundamental change and prepare us for the challenges ahead. &nbsp;

Reimagining Sustainable Cities: Strategies for Designing Greener, Healthier, More Equitable Communities

Rosan, Christina D.

University of California Press

In A Discourse of Wonders, Stephen M. Wheeler introduces a fresh perspective for readers of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Drawing on Ovidian scholarship and twentieth-century literary theory, he argues that the poem is not an anthology or collection but a single continuous performance. Wheeler's thorough, detailed analysis of how Ovid constructs, cultivates, and transforms his audience challenges the assumption that Ovid's narrative persona addresses the reader. Wheeler proposes instead that Ovid represents himself in the poem as an epic storyteller moved to tell a universal history of metamorphosis in the presence of a fictional audience. The longstanding critical interest in Ovid's poetics, Wheeler maintains, has tended to obscure the role of the audience in reading and interpreting the Metamorphoses. 
A Discourse of Wonders offers an imaginative and accessible revaluation of one of the greatest surviving works of classical poetry, one whose enduring influence can be found in literature, art, music, and the performing arts from the Middle Ages to the present.

A Discourse of Wonders: Audience and Performance in Ovid's "Metamorphoses"

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

University of Pennsylvania Press

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Books by Wheeler, Stephen M.