Life After Carbon, Peter Plastrik
Life After Carbon, Peter Plastrik
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Life After Carbon
The Next Global Transformation of Cities

Author: Peter Plastrik, John Cleveland

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Unabridged: 8 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/04/2018

Categories: Nonfiction, Architecture


Synopsis

The future of our cities is not what it used to be. The modern-city model that took hold globally in the twentieth century has outlived its usefulness. It cannot solve the problems it helped to create—especially global warming. Fortunately, a new model for urban development is emerging in cities to aggressively tackle the realities of climate change. It transforms the way cities design and use physical space, generate economic wealth, consume and dispose of resources, exploit and sustain the natural ecosystems, and prepare for the future.In Life After Carbon, urban sustainability consultants Pete Plastrik and John Cleveland assemble this global pattern of urban reinvention from the stories of 25 "innovation lab" cities across the globe—from Copenhagen to Melbourne. A city innovation lab is the entire city—the complex, messy, real urban world where innovations must work. It is a city in which government, business, and community leaders take to heart the challenge of climate change and converge on the radical changes that are necessary. They free downtowns from cars, turn buildings into renewable-energy power plants, re-nature entire neighborhoods, incubate growing numbers of clean-energy and smart-tech companies, convert waste to energy, and much more. Plastrik and Cleveland show that four transformational ideas are driving urban climate innovation around the world, in practice, not just in theory: carbon-free advantage, efficient abundance, nature's benefits, and adaptive futures. And these ideas are thriving in markets, professions, consumer trends, community movements, and "higher" levels of government that enable cities.Life After Carbon presents the new ideas that are replacing the pillars of the modern-city model, converting climate disaster into urban opportunity, and shaping the next transformation of cities worldwide. It will inspire anyone who cares about the future of our cities, and help them to map a sustainable path forward.

About Peter Plastrik

Peter Plastrik is cofounder and Vice-President, Innovation Network for Communities (INC), a nonprofit national network of community system innovators. A prolific author, Peter wrote Banishing Bureaucracy: The Five Strategies for Reinventing Government and The Reinventor's Fieldbook: Tools for Transforming Your Government with coauthor David Osborne. Madeleine Beaubien Taylor, Ph.D., has conducted policy and evaluation research for the public and nonprofit sectors since 1987. She has consulted to governments, universities, and foundations as well as to community-based nonprofits, on issues that include culture and the environment, community economic development and nonprofit network-building. John Cleveland is President and a founder of the Innovation Network for Communities (INC).


Reviews

Goodreads review by Claudia

This is a somewhat mediocre book. In all its endless lists of urban centers for environmental change, it does more praise for politics and business than for specific scientific innovations. The few it has totally disregard the primary sources of CO2 emissions. I don’t believe animal agriculture (the......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca

I would describe this book as a high level overview, a good primer for people interested in urban planning, decarbonization, and the intersection between the two. I certainly learned something about transit-oriented development. To give the authors credit, there was clearly an attempt to include exa......more

Goodreads review by Fred

Overall, a good summary of new ideas and trends around climate adaptation for cities. It doesn't go in depth but does a good job of summarizing things going on in some leading cities around the world. The book is a little breezy sometimes and makes some long ongoing initiatives sound simple. But I l......more