Governance for Urban Sustainability and Resilience
Subtitle: Responding to Climate Change and the Relevance of the Built Environment
Publisher: Elgar Publishing Limited, Edward
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9781782548126
Subjects: Urban ecology (sociology); Sustainability; Local government
Description: "'The IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report (2014) has highlighted the importance of urban areas in mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases. Urban centres are also subject to the impacts of climate change. Hence governance for urban sustainability and resilience needs to be developed to deal with the challenge of climate change in the future and its impacts on urban locations. This book is a rich repository of knowledge and information on this subject of growing relevance.'--Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Professor, Yale Climate and Energy Institute, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, US. 'This book provides a timely overview of the range of government intervention models in the policy domain of urban sustainability. Combining the two closely related, but usually separated, policy objectives of Sustainability and Resilience has particular utility.^

Having good ideas about how to save the planet are necessary but if we can't use governance tools to deliver them, we have no hope.'--Peter Newman, Curtin University, Australia. Cities, and the built environment more broadly, are key in the global response to climate change. This groundbreaking book seeks to understand what governance tools are best suited for achieving cities that are less harmful to the natural environment, are less dependent on finite resources, and can better withstand human-made hazards and climate risks. In mapping, describing and evaluating nearly 70 traditional and highly innovative governance tools from Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, Jeroen van der Heijden uncovers the five most eminent contemporary trends in governance for urban sustainability and resilience. He also develops a series of 12 design principles that will help to develop better governance tools for improving the sustainability and resilience of today's cities and those of the future.^

The book is unique in drawing lessons from the theoretical literature on environmental and hazard governance into a broad empirical study. The book will be of great interest to scholars in the field of urban governance, urban planning, sustainable development and resilience, environmental and hazard governance, and climate risk adaptation and mitigation. It will also appeal to students, policymakers and organisations involved with environmental policy and governance"--Page 4 of cover.