Resilient cities: Responsing to peak oil and climate change

Mainstreaming Climate in the Classroom: Teaching Climate Change Planning

“…One of the earliest observations of this was by Newman and Kenworthy (1988) who demonstrated quite clearly that denser cities used less gasoline per capita (see also Newman et al, 2009 The literature suggests that doubling residential density across a metropolitan area might lower household VMT by about 5 to 12 percent, and perhaps by as much as 25 percent, if coupled with higher employment concentrations, significant public transit improvements, mixed uses, and other supportive demand management measures.…”

“…The design and policy choices involved have been well laid out in several recent planning books that link urban form and mitigation (Lerch, 2008;Newman et al, 2009;Condon, 2010;Calthorpe, 2011). Methods for municipal greenhouse gas accounting and related climate action planning are complex and technical, but are also rapidly being standardized (Boswell et al, 2012).…”

“…Some additional key concepts form the backbone of epistemology of climate planning. Resiliency, which first emerged as a concept in the ecological fields (Holling, 1973), has become an increasingly important theoretical frame for adaptation (Newman et al, 2009). And the use of scenarios and visualizations to reach out to the public has become much more important given the pressing need to make the future more palpable (Quay, 2010;Sheppard et al, 2011).…”

“…Climate change has been recognized as an important and valid aspect of planning practice, if one judges by the plethora of relatively new books on cities and climate change (Roaf et al, 2005;Ruth, 2006;Girardet, 2008;Lerch, 2008Bicknell et al, 2009Davoudi et al, 2009;Newman et al, 2009;Schipper and Burton, 2009;Calthorpe, 2011;Boswell et al, 2012;Stone, 2012), special planning journal volumes (e.g. Blanco et al, 2009b;Crane & Landis, 2010), and scholarly research and debate (see Betsill & Bulkeley, 2007;Sanchez-Rodriguez, 2009;Blanco et al, 2009a;Wheeler et al, 2009 for reviews of the field) or, perhaps more importantly, the growing body of local climate change plans (Wheeler, 2008;Bassett & Shandas, 2010).…”

Climbing the Adaptation Planning Ladder: Barriers and Enablers in Municipal Planning

“…Safe, naturally vegetated walkways and cycle paths should connect residential, retail, employment and recreational areas. Proposals for new development should include travel plans which include a range of sustainable transport options -walking, cycling, public transport, and only lastly, the private motor car (Newman et al, 2009). …”