Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century

Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century

Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century

Author(s): James Howard Kunstler

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 0684811960

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Home from Nowhere : Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-First Century

Hardcover
320 pages
October 1996

Amazon.com:
Deep down, many Americans are dissatisfied with suburbia — though they have trouble understanding what’s missing, writes James Howard Kunstler in this semi-sequel to his critically-acclaimed Geography of Nowhere. Much of this engaging book tries to fill in the holes. Modernist architecture and inhumane zoning laws have made suburbanites prisoners to a car culture that is overly friendly to ugly strip malls and actively hostile to the development of healthy, vibrant communities, says Kunstler. We must return to the idea of Main Street America, where people live, work and shop among neighbors they know and trust. Here’s how.

The New York Times Book Review, Alexander Garvin
Kunstler’s is the latest in a long line of polemics that employ colorful writing and vivid illustrations to decry the ugliness that pervades the American landscape.

From Booklist , October 15, 1996
In The Geography of Nowhere (1993), Kunstler, a novelist, ardent and perceptive citizen-observer, and masterful rhetorician, began his study of why suburbs, neglected Main Streets, and squandered cities are so bereft of beauty. Here, he continues his critique of American architecture, culture, and values and, in the process, identifies the source of the malaise people experience in and around the hideous structures that make every suburb resemble every other suburb. This degradation of the public realm is, Kunstler vehemently declares, nothing less than the degradation of the common good. Leaving aside architectural issues for the moment, Kunstler launches into a provocative discussion of the consequences of becoming consumers rather than citizens, of abandoning the community for an addiction to television, and of the corporate colonization of cities and the countryside. After both riling and delighting the reader with his ire, brilliance, and candor, Kunstler returns to the subject of buildings and chronicles the quiet growth of New Urbanism, a smart and hopeful trend toward improving American life. Donna Seaman Copyright© 1996, American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Car and the City: 24 Steps to Safe Streets and Healthy Communities

The Car and the City: 24 Steps to Safe Streets and Healthy Communities

The Car and the City: 24 Steps to Safe Streets and Healthy Communities

Author(s): Alan Thein During

Publisher: Northwest Environment Watch (April 1996)

ISBN: 1886093032

ISBN-13: 978-1886093034

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Most people recognize that the increasing number of automobiles is choking our cities, polluting our air, endangering our streets and isolating us from other people. This book shows how resurgent cities could make cars work again, and even solve problems ranging from oil wars to urban decay, global warming to violent crime. Alan Thein Durning reports on activities in three great cities of the Pacific Northwest: Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. He describes the origins of urban sprawl and the price we pay to support it. He then offers tangible solutions built around vibrant urban neighborhoods that replace mobility with proximity. The result is a community that’s safer, healthier and more environmentally responsible.

73 pages, 1996

Designing the City: A Guide for Advocates and Public Officials

Designing the City: A Guide for Advocates and Public Officials

Designing the City: A Guide for Advocates and Public Officials

Author(s): Adele Fleet Bacow

Publisher: Island Press

ISBN: 1559632917

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Paperback: 210 pages

Written in a clear and engaging style, Designing the City is a practical manual for improving the way communities are planned, designed, and built. It presents a wealth of information on design and decision-making, including advice on how citizens and activists can make their voices heard, and numerous examples of effective strategies for working with all parties involved in neighborhood and community development. It highlights proven models and strategies to help communities:

  • establish unique and productive partnerships with public works and transportation departments
  • develop resources through grant programs
  • broaden expertise, perspective, and constituency
  • create new and enduring models for effective action
  • educate participants and consumers of the design and development process
Greening Cities : Building Just and Sustainable Communities

Greening Cities : Building Just and Sustainable Communities

Greening Cities : Building Just and Sustainable Communities

Author(s): Joan Roelofs

Publisher: Bootstrap Press

ISBN: 0942850351

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Nicholas L. Henry, President, Georgia Southern University:
Joan Roelofs is one of the few persons to see that the dream of the Green City is an attainable reality. She has brought together for us many of the most inspiring projects that are creating more sustainable communities in all corners of the globe. Greening Cities is a very welcome source of information and an inspiration for this process. . . .

Jan Juffermans, policy planner at De Kleine Aarde/The Small Earth in the Netherlands and author of the guide, Sustainable Lifestyles, recently published by Towns and Development, an international network of local authorities, NGOs and community groups:
Joan Roelofs’ Greening Cities represents not only a way to learn about environmental studies, but public administration as well particularly planning for urban areas. It is a unique contribution to the literature, and I can commend it to professors and students of public administration alike.

Book Description:
This book is a treasure trove of practical ideas that embody Green values of social and environmental justice and are actually working on the ground in small, medium, and large cities, as well as some rural communities, all around the world. It shows how these values can and are being incorporated in local government policy and how they shape voluntary efforts by community groups.

From the Publisher:
This book is a treasure trove of practical ideas that embody Green values of social and environmental justice and are actually working on the ground in small, medium, and large cities, as well as some rural communities, all around the world. It shows how these values can and are being incorporated in local government policy and how they shape voluntary efforts by community groups. Topics covered in separate chapters range from urban design, democracy and culture to energy, water, transportation, food, waste, health, economy, and recreation. Originally conceived as a workbook for students in urban and environment studies, public administration, geography, and planning, Greening Cities is also must reading for community leaders, activists, and indeed anyone concerned about and committed to building a more just and sustainable society. Illustrated, index.

From the Back Cover:
Greening Cities is a treasure trove of practical ideas that embody Green values of social and environmental justice and are actually working on the ground in small, medium, and large cities, as well as some rural communities, all around the world. It shows how these values can and are being incorporated in local government policy and how they shape voluntary efforts by community groups. Topics covered in separate chapters range from urban design, democracy, and culture to energy, water, transportation, food, waste, health, economy, and recreation. Originally conceived as a workbook for students in urban and environment studies, public administration, geography, and planning, Greening Cities is also must reading for community leaders, activists, and indeed anyone concerned about and committed to building a more just and sustainable society. About the Author : Joan Roelofs is Professor of Political Science at Keene State

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Introduction – What Are Green Cities?
Chapter 2 – Urban Design
Chapter 3 – Energy
Chapter 4 – Water
Chapter 5 – Transportation
Chapter 6 – Food and Agriculture
Chapter 7 – Waste
Chapter 8 – Health
Chapter 9 – Economy
Chapter 10 – Recreation
Chapter 11 – Culture
Chapter 12 – Democracy
Chapter 13 – Eco-City Institutions
Epilogue – What Is a Green City?
Appendix – Organizations Concerned with Greening Cities
Selected Bibliography
Index

Toxic Free Neighborhoods Community Planning Guide

Order From: Environmental Health Coalition
Attn: Publications
1717 Kettner Blvd., Suite 100
San Diego, CA 92101
FAX: (619) 232-3670

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Urban low-income communities of color often endure a disproportionate share of the health and economic burdens created by toxic chemicals. The Toxic Free Neighborhoods Community Planning Guide provides an opportunity to reverse this trend and create healthier neighborhoods through citizen participation, effective public policy advocacy, well-directed public education efforts, and pollution prevention approaches. Grassroots and environmental justice groups along with elected officials, academic institutions, city planning and zoning departments will find this guide vital to effective environmental planning and redevelopment in urban areas.

Reinventing Fire

Reinventing Fire

Reinventing Fire

Author: Amory Lovins
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (October 15, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1603583718
ISBN-13: 978-1603583718

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How U.S. businesses can lead the nation from oil and coal to efficiency and renewables by 2050, and profit in the process

Oil and coal have built our civilization, created our wealth, and enriched the lives of billions. Yet their rising costs to our security, economy, health, and environment now outweigh their benefits. Moreover, that long-awaited energy tipping point—where alternatives work better than oil and coal and compete purely on cost—is no longer decades in the future. It is here and now. And it is the fulcrum of economic transformation.

A global clean energy race has emerged with astounding speed. The ability to operate without fossil fuels will define winners and losers in business—and among nations.

Now, in Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins and Rocky Mountain Institute offer a new vision to revitalize business models, end-run Washington gridlock, and win the clean energy race—not forced by public policy but led by business for enduring profit. Grounded in 30 years’ practical experience, this ground-breaking, peer-reviewed analysis integrates market-based solutions across transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity. It maps pathways and competitive strategies for a 158%-bigger 2050 U.S. economy that needs no oil, no coal, no nuclear energy, one-third less natural gas, and no new inventions. This transition would cost $5 trillion less than business-as-usual—without counting fossil fuels’ huge hidden costs. It requires no new federal taxes, subsidies, mandates, or laws. The policy innovations needed to unlock and speed it need no Act of Congress.

Whether you care most about profits and jobs, national security, health, or environmental stewardship, Reinventing Fire charts a pragmatic course that makes sense and makes money. With clarity and mastery, Lovins and RMI reveal the astounding opportunities for enterprise to create the new energy era.

Design Outlaws on the Ecological Frontier

Cover, Design Outlaws on the Ecological Frontier Author(s): Chris Zelov, Phil Cousineau and Brian Dantz

Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub Co

ISBN: 096503061X

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Paperback Publication date: April 1997

300 pages, 225 photos

Buckminster Fuller was a design outlaw. He shattered preconceived notions of how buildings and machines should be put together. The result was the geodesic dome, the 60 mile-per-gallon Dymaxion Car, the self-sufficient Dymaxion House and host of other inventions that influenced a new wave of designers. In making their award-winning film, Ecological Design, Chris Zelov and Phil Cousineau interviewed 26 present-day design outlaws. To expand on the film, they published this book. Both the film and the book are brimming with the ideas and prototypes of the trailblazers who have defined ecological design over the past thirty years.

Here’s a partial list of the outlaws: Brendan O’Reagan, Ian McHarg, Douglas Adams, John Todd, Jay Baldwin, Stewart Brand, Mary Catherine Bateson, Paul McCready, William McDonough, Amory and Hunter Lovins, Hazel Henderson, Pliny Fisk, Paolo Soleri, Christopher Alexander, John Connell and many more. These forward-thinking designers have defied convention with new ideas on shelter, energy, transportation and industry. In addition to being thought-provoking, these colorful characters are very entertaining.

Table of Contents

Chapter One:
Into the Fuller Universe
Thomas Hughes: The Frontier Spirit of Invention
Harold Cohen: Design as a Way of Making the World Work
Brendan O’Reagan: Outlaw Creativity
Douglas Adams: The Mad Ones; The Original Ones
John Todd: The Innovator’s Sense of Urgency
J. Baldwin: Encounters with the Mentor
Ian McHarg: Fuller’s Contribution
Paul MacCready: The Inventive Process

Chapter Two:
From a Machine for Living to Living Machines
Ian McHarg: Why is Architecture Oblivious to the Environment
James Wines: Towards a New Architecture
Edmund Bacon: Nature as Design Paradigm Stewart Brand: Sitting at the Counterculture
J. Baldwin: Into the Design Revolution
Tony Gwilliam: Organic Building
Mary Catherine Bateson: Understadning Natural Systems
William McDonough: Not a Machine for Living in – A Living Machine!

Chapter Three:
The Intelligent Use of Energy
Amory Lovins: The Road Least Taken
Hunter Lovins: The Rocky Mountain Institute
Peter Calthorpe: Whole-Systems Design
Hazel Henderson: Redefining Wealth
J. Baldwin: On Tools
Harold Cohen: Money is Money
William McDonough: Designing for Interdependance

Chapter Four:
The Galactic Explorer Perspective
Paul MacCready: The Galactic Explorer Comes to Visit
Brendan O’Reagan: Thinking in Interplanetary Terms
Pliny Fisk: Systems in Continuous Evolution
John Allen: The Cosmic Drama
Harold Cohen: Making the World Work for All Humanity
Duane Elgin: The Univeral Liturgy
John Todd: The New Alchemists
William McDonough: Reviving the Ancient Art of Design
James Wines: Developing a New Iconography

Chapter Five:
The Emergence of an Ecological Design Science
Ian McHarg: On the Origins of Ecological Design
Brendan O’Reagan: Heading for an Aesthetic of the Invisible
William McDonough: The Multiplier Effect in Design
Carol Franklin & Lesley Sauer: Synergistic Solutions
Tony Gwilliam: Comprehensive Anticipatory Design
Christopher Alexander: Design for Living Structures
Gail Vittori & Pliny Fisk: Obstacles to Sustainable Design
Mary Catherine Bateson: Making the Earth Our Home

Chapter Six:
The New Collective Dream
Paolo Soleri: Tranforming the Urban Condition
Tony Gwilliam: Integrated Architecture
Amory Lovins: Retrofitting Our Cities
Leslie Sauer & Carol Franklin: The Greening of the City
Christopher Alexander: The Living Structure Approach to Design
Mike Corbett: Why Can’t We Build Better Communities?
Virginia Thigpen: Community – Conceived Designs
Jaime Lerner: The Collective Dream

Chapter Seven:
Writing the New Codes
Peter Calthorpe: The History of the Codes
Douglas Adams: The Infinite Virtual Address
Duane Elgin: Mutually Assured Development
Paul MacCready: Education as an Odyssey of the Mind
James Wines: Design Education
Ian McHarg: Teaching the Ecological World View
Mike Corbett: Reinventing Design Education
Hazel Henderson: The Importance of Self-Education
William McDonough: a Shift from Style to Substance
Tom Casey: The Transformation of Business
J. Baldwin: Future Housing
Mary Catherine Bateson: A Future that Looks Like Home

Afterword: Toward a Design Curriculum for the 21st Century

Biography: R. Buckminster Fuller J. Baldwin: Teaching Comprehensive Design Science David Sellers: Antiques of the Future John Connel: Towards A Design Curriculum Anthony Walmsley: Ecological Design: Myth or Method