Housing Sustainability in Low Carbon Cities

Ralph Horne is Professor of Geography at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

"Ralph Horne provides a fascinating and thoughtful account of the messy realities that confront policymakers grappling with the task of advancing housing sustainability. Full of theoretical and practical insights, this book deserves to be read by all those with an interest in the politics of housing and climate change." — Professor Keith Jacobs, University of Tasmania, Australia"Any transition to a low carbon future will require that the places we call home become more sustainable. Housing Sustainability in Low Carbon Cities brings a new perspective on the forms of inhabitation we need, providing an engaged, critical perspective of the potential and challenges ahead, and creating an agenda for change." — Professor Harriet Bulkeley, University of Durham, UK"Ralph Horne casts his unique multidisciplinary eye over the question of housing in this book, and in so doing inspirationally shifts the terms in which the sustainable housing debate is conducted. His detailed illustrations of how sustainable housing is practised will become foundational resources for urban policy makers as they experiment with transitioning to low carbon futures." — Professor Robyn Dowling, The University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Australia"Horne’s book carefully weaves three, often separate strands of the emerging urban agenda namely carbon control, accountable governance and spatial and economic inequality, into a lucid, compelling narrative. Linking building science and behavior change, and urban economies and housing affordability, the book offers scholars and practitioners of urban sustainability and housing studies a guide to emerging theory and empirical work in this rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field." — Professor Julian Agyeman, Tufts University, USA"Housing Sustainability in Low Carbon Cities is a welcome reminder that affordability is the crux of housing policy, and is likely to become ever more sensitive in the future. In a market economy, sustainable cities involve a trend towards higher energy prices to promote savings on consumption and higher land prices to reduce their spatial footprint. Though sustainability is not the only factor driving higher consumer costs, concerns about affordability and associated concerns about fairness and social justice are likely to accompany any transition towards the sustainable city. In this context, Housing Sustainability in Low Carbon Cities serves to open up a new agenda for housing and urban research and, through the development of the concept of ‘Lifetime Affordable Housing’, offers the outline of a framework to analyse this new agenda." —Barry Goodchild, Professor of Urban Planning, Sheffield Hallam University, UK"The strength of this book is in the links it makes between housing and the broader environment, between production and consumption, between hard and soft science and between places and people. It demonstrates an understanding of sustainability in a practical sense." — Prof Jon Kellett, University of Adelaide, Australia

• 1. Introduction: Housing sustainability in low carbon citiesPart I Perspectives, policies and transitions2. Boundaries and blind spots: Measurement and assessment3. Perspectives on housing sustainability in low carbon cities4. Policy settings and approaches5. Transitions to housing sustainability in low carbon citiesPart II Dynamics of housing sustainability6. Housing production and practice7. Households, consumption and carbon8. Lifetime Affordable Housing in an era of carbon restraint9. Home improvements: Low carbon retrofit and renovationPart III Governance of housing sustainability in low carbon cities10. Urban intensification, sustainability and the city11. Smart, sustainable and resilient? — An ethical cities agenda12. Governing household carbon13. Housing sustainability in low carbon cities