Abstract
With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ranking of 2010 with 2005 as the two warmest years on record since reliable recordkeeping began in 1880, Sustainability in America’s Cities: Creating the Green Metropolis presents a timely collection of case studies on urban practices and policies aimed at transforming cities to be more sustainable. This edited volume presents nine case studies that add substantially to the knowledge of practitioners, academics, and students of U.S. cities’ sustainability efforts over the past decade. The editor organized authors from an array of large U.S. cities to address the current lack of detailed information on the topic.
The introduction chapter, chapter 1, “The Rise of the Urban Sustainability Movement in America” by Slavin, frames the topic historically and evaluates the recent upswing in urban long-term planning, also known as planning for urban sustainability. The nine middle chapters explore case studies of sustainability work in eight major American cities (two of the chapters cover aspects of sustainability in New York City): climate change action planning in Portland, Oregon (by Slavin and Snyder); the politics of green technology in Phoenix and the role that the university is playing in advancing green-tech (by Fink); green building in Washington, D.C. (by Knapp, Gardner, Bennett, Simon, and Varnier); bicycle and car-sharing activism in San Francisco (by Golub and Henderson); storm water management in Philadelphia (by Mandarano); clean energy innovations in Honolulu (by Slavin, Codiga, and Zeller); food system planning and food justice in New York City (by Cohen and Obadia); urban forest regeneration in New York City (by McPhearson); and brownfield transformation in Milwaukee (by De Sousa). Slavin distinguishes between sustainability and sustainable development, stating that sustainability is a broader term indicating “the capacity of natural systems to endure, to remain diverse and productive over time” (p. 2). Sustainable cities, according to Slavin, consciously conduct themselves in small ecological footprint ways, involving all systems that make up their totality—transportation, buildings, food, economics, and governance. Sustainable development means humans achieving “a level of economic and social development that does not inevitably alter ecological balance” (p. 2).
One of the best chapters is chapter 8, “Clean Waters, Clean City: Sustainable Storm Water Management in Philadelphia,” by Mandarano because of its detailed tracking of the city’s sustainable development plan that centers on comprehensive watershed planning. The author details the historical developments underpinning the establishment of the nation’s first municipal Office of Watersheds, a city division devoted to watershed management, in 1999. Philadelphia was the first U.S. city to provide water to its citizens as a public utility in the 1800s. The city has continued its leadership in water and sanitation services with innovative technologies, such as a centralized water distribution system, hydropowered pumps, and disinfection systems. In the past ten years, the city has implemented Low Impact Development (LID) techniques, such as green roofs, bioretention, porous pavement, and conservation, to control the amount and timing of storm water discharges. Philadelphia’s Green City-Clean Waters program has used LID technologies, including infiltration, traffic circle rain gardens, environmental art installations, and green roofs, to meet and exceed EPA requirements at much lower costs compared to traditional gray infrastructure methods. The economic efficiencies of LID technologies, up to ten times less expensive, compared with traditional gray infrastructure, need to be communicated to public officials and citizens along with the environmental and social benefits of green infrastructure.
Golub and Henderson in chapter 6, “The Greening of Mobility in San Francisco,” trace the development of car-sharing and bicycling in San Francisco, an exemplary case of citizen activism serving as a catalyst for innovative city programs. The authors investigate two green mobility projects: the intensifying of the city’s bicycle transportation program and the introduction of a car-sharing strategy. Golub and Henderson assert that the city’s green mobility advances have resulted largely because of persistent grassroots advocacy by well-informed citizens and entrepreneurs and have made San Francisco a leader in alternative transportation.
Chapter 10, “Greening the Food Supply in New York” by Cohen and Obadia, paints an uplifting picture of what can be accomplished along the path to transforming a large city’s inefficient, costly, environmentally problematic, and socially inequitable food distribution system to one that offers more easily accessible, healthy, fresh food. The authors explore three types of urban agriculture: community gardens, rooftop farms, and small-scale urban farms. Cohen and Obadia recognize an important connection between urban agriculture programs and the need to also save peri-urban farmland for the efficiencies and benefits to be gained from a regional food system. Green Thumb, Healthy Bodegas (neighborhood markets) FRESH, and Green Carts are some of the programs that lead New York City’s sustainable urban food initiatives. After highlighting Detroit’s, San Francisco’s, and Philadelphia’s food systems planning movements, the chapter ends with pointing out specific areas where more data is needed, in areas such as the efficacy of these equity initiatives in food systems planning, nutrition education, and composting.
The concluding chapter, chapter 11, “Where Sustainability Stands Now: Contemporary Trends and Future Prospects” by Slavin, synthesizes current trends and future directions in urban sustainability. Based on the case studies, Slavin comes to six conclusions—urban sustainability connects the twin efforts of cities to promote climate change mitigation and economic development and redevelopment; positive personal attributes of key players and activism are crucial; institutional stakeholders, such as universities and large corporations, can play leadership roles with new approaches to mobilization and participation in sustainability efforts; cities must find ways to resolve conflicting visions on sustainability and promote new alignments of interests; we need to redefine more sustainable ways to feed urban populations, especially the poor; and the success of the green building trend is having significant effects but needs to increase. Slavin notes that the industrial location magazine, Site Selection, now incorporates a list of sustainable metropolitan areas, rather than its past predilection for ranking localities for loose local and state environmental and workforce protection standards.
One of the best features of the book is the practical information provided on each city’s sustainability plans. Not only are city codes cited, but each chapter’s notes give references and links. This book focuses on information of use for policy makers, planners, and graduate and undergraduate students to help advance sustainability policies and practices. The chapters can be useful individually as good course readings on particular sustainability concepts and for the case studies.
The main area where the book comes up short is in its focus on only select large cities. The eight case study cities rank among the fifty most populous U.S. cities. Including examples of sustainability efforts in small and midsize cities would have addressed a broader perspective. Slavin justifies selecting only large cities because they often have greater resources with which to advance sustainability efforts. Yet this limits the applicability of the cases since the recent decades have seen considerable growth in small and midsize cities, especially those near larger cities. He does address some smaller cities’ sustainability initiatives in the concluding chapter but it seems at least one case study would be justified. The redesign of shrinking cities, such as Detroit and Flint, Michigan, for more sustainability, while touched on in Slavin’s concluding chapter, is an area rich in possibilities and ripe for communication.
Also, in chapter 6, the authors fail to link green mobility with the active living movement and aspects of the U.S. health crisis, such as increasing rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Addressing these important components of green transportation, as well as equity objectives for lower-income people, the elderly, and other at-risk populations, would make this chapter more complete and useful for other cities as well as providing a more complete picture of San Francisco’s transportation circumstances. Another shortfall is the general lack of environmental justice issues, with the exception of the chapter on the New York City food system. For instance, Detroit, with the highest poverty rate of any large U.S. city, has lost nearly half of its bus service in the past six years (Transportation Riders United, 2012). The disproportionate impacts on urban poor of such cutbacks could have been examined. How do different socioeconomic groups experience sustainability and how can cities advance the needs of all citizens whether the issue is green transportation, storm water management, or green buildings? The issue of sustainability indicators remains largely unexplored in the chapters, though Slavin cites Kent Portney’s early work on this (Portney, 2003). Including information on what indicators cities have adopted to measure their sustainability initiatives and how well those indicators have performed would provide practical lessons. Another gap in the book is the lack of presentation of empirical data in support of assertions.
The chapters in this book take an optimistic attitude that many readers will appreciate in the current budget-constrained times. Realizing that LID technologies, such as those employed in Philadelphia’s Green City–Clean Waters program, can be implemented at huge savings while being just as effective performance-wise as conventional storm water management techniques, is persuasive information that needs to be more widely known. Learning from the sustainability cases in this book can lead municipalities, states, and regions to greater achievement in adapting and extending such practices. For that reason, and for the readable, well-written style, Sustainability in America’s Cities: Creating the Green Metropolis is highly recommended for academics and planning practitioners.