Planning for Sustainability

How can humanity sustain itself and thrive on a small planet? This challenge grows ever more urgent as the climate crisis deepens and as right-wing populism and high levels of inequality prevent action.

Planning for Sustainability presents a wide-ranging, intellectually well-grounded, and accessible introduction to the concept of sustainability planning. The text explores topics such as how more livable cities and towns might be created, how greenhouse gas emissions might be curtailed, how social inequities might be reduced, how local ecosystems can be restored, and how more sustainable forms of economic development can be brought about.

More than simply a third edition, this book has been extensively rewritten to provide a timely rethinking of the nature of sustainability planning, issues central to it, and scales of application. There is a new focus on system change in order for other forms of progress to come about. This edition also includes expanded material on climate action, housing, social equity, capitalism, democracy, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the developing world.

This book considers in turn each scale of planning—international, national, regional, municipal, neighborhood, and site and building—and illustrates how sustainability action at different scales interrelates. This comprehensive volume lays out a hopeful and constructive view of the future in a time of growing challenge. It will be essential reading for students of urban planning, urban development, and similar fields and practitioners.