Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change

‘Cities are green’ is becoming a common refrain. But in his new book Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change Peter Calthorpe argues that a more comprehensive understanding of urbanism at the regional scale provides a better platform to address climate change. He shows how such regionally scaled urbanism can be combined with green technology to achieve not only needed reductions in carbon emissions but other critical economies and lifestyle benefits. Rather than just providing another checklist of new energy sources or one-dimensional land use alternates, he combines them into comprehensive national growth scenarios for 2050 and documents their potential impacts. In so doing, he demonstrates that it will take an integrated approach of land use transformation, policy changes and innovative technology to transition to a low carbon economy.