Untamed Urbanisms edited by Adriana Allen, Andrea Lampis, & Mark Swilling is a collection of academic pieces on the intersection of urban development with economic and ecologically sustainable considerations as part of the Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science and Policy series, free courtesy of publisher Taylor & Francis' Routledge academic imprint.
This is a new addition to their Open Access series which is made available for free under a Creative Commons license, for which you can see previous offerings (matched in many of the usual retail stores) on their
dedicated webpage here.
It's also pretty nifty-looking and covers not just general cross-disciplinary conclusions, but also specific case studies involving things like Mayan households and public spaces in Zimbabwe, and food supply considerations, etc.
Currently free @
B&N (also
UK),
Amazon (available to Canadians & in the
UK,
Kobo &
iTunes &
Google Play (all available to Canadians), and directly @
the publisher's website (DRM-free PDF available worldwide).
And this has been the (late!) selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.
Because I
academic books and Routledge titles are generally very high quality (and high priced!), and it's great to see another one get added to their Open Access free texts initiative, so that even curious laypersons can indulge a desire to Learn Stuff.
Enjoy!
Description
One of the major challenges of urban development has been reconciling the way cities develop with the mounting evidence of resource depletion and the negative environmental impacts of predominantly urban-based modes of production and consumption. This book aims to re-politicise the relationship between urban development, sustainability and justice, and to explore the tensions emerging under real circumstances, as well as their potential for transformative change.
For some, cities are the root of all that is unsustainable, while for others cities provide unique opportunities for sustainability-oriented innovations that address equity and ecological challenges. This book is rooted in the latter category, but recognises that if cities continue to evolve along current trajectories they will be where the large bulk of the most unsustainable and inequitable human activities are concentrated. By drawing on a range of case studies from both the global South and global North, this book is unique in its aim to develop an integrated social-ecological perspective on the challenge of sustainable urban development.
Through the interdisciplinary and original research of a new generation of urban researchers across the global South and North, this book addresses old debates in new ways and raises new questions about sustainable urban development. It will be of interest to researchers, city managers and a wide range of policy actors in government, civil society and the private sector.