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About this book
This book shows how urban sprawl is unsustainable in an age of climate change and peak oil, and challenges the UK to develop a 'Smart Growth' approach to improve the quality of life in our overcrowded island. People who live in compact traditional towns have far smaller environmental footprints than those who live in sprawling suburbs. So is urban sprawl inevitable? Are there better ways of getting about? And can 60 million people crammed into a land bulging at the seams ever find ways of treating it with respect?
Smart Growth argues that we should look for the answer to America - the country that embraced urban sprawl and car dependency on a far grander scale than we ever did. There is much we can learn from its 'Smart Growth' movement, which is successfully arguing for compact cities, rail-based transit systems and restoring communities ruined by decades of self-centred suburban life.
Contents
Part I - How we got here A squandered land Decline and sprawl - a century of spatial planning The death and life of great British cities Part II - Where we are An unsustainable communities plan Climate change America - land of dreams Part III - Where we need to be Care and maintenance of a small country - smart growth planning Smart Growth transport A Smart Growth vision
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Biography
Jon Reeds is an environmental journalist who has worked alongside and written about planners and transport planners for nearly 40 years. In 2006 he helped found Smart Growth UK, a national coalition engaged in promoting Smart Growth principles as a way of bringing a strong sustainable development ethos into the way we plan spatial development, transport and communities.
Out of Print
By: Jon Reeds
288 pages
Jon Reed's book lays bare the ghastliness of the sprawling development that has destroyed our cities, communities and much countryside, but is ultimately hopeful in charting a way to a better future through application of the principles of 'smart growth" Lynn Sloman - author of Car Sick Reeds' acccount shows him to be knowledgeable, passionate, irreverent and, at times, exasperated about the state of our settlements. Smart Growth is required reading for anyone who cares about the future of land use planning in the UK. Rebecca Willis - Vice Chair, Sustainable Development Commission i"? "Jon Reeds sets out clearly the roots of car-dependent urban sprawl and charts a way out of it. This book should be read by anyone interested in practical ways to tackle climate change and car dependency." Stephen Joseph - Chief Executive, Campaign for Better Transport. i"?