The Sustainable City by Steven Cohen

When I was growing up in a small village in Greece in the 1960s and 1970s there were about four billion people on the planet. Today, there are more than seven billion and in mid-century there probably be nine billion people on the planet. I was hoping that by now we would be able to move and live to another planet. But we are not. As human population keeps on growing our needs for water, food, land, and energy are  increasing, but exhaustible natural resources such as arable land, fresh water, biodiversity, forests, coral reefs, oil and gas continue to drop sharply, In addition, substances and human-made chemicals that we use everyday are turning up in our lakes, rivers and oceans, they disturb the balance of ecosystems and they are disastrous for all the living things that are relying on them. Moreover, they are coming back to haunt us  in the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breath.

The pressure on natural resources has been increased dramatically and the competition for scarce natural resources becomes more intense.We need, therefore,  to figure out a way not only to live on this planet with all the people that are here now and all the people that will be born in the next few decades, but also to manage and, if possible, to lessen the impact of our species on this planet.

With most of the global population and capital goods now concentrated in urban areas, cities are key to social, environmental and economic prosperity. But urbanization and the   ever-increasing production and consumption in cities result in serious environmental problems in terms of the pollution of air, water and land as well as the degradation of ecosystems. Cities are today responsible for 67% of the total global energy consumption and more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions and these trends significantly intensify the severity of one of  our great challenges of our time, climate change. Most of our megacities today are coastal and that puts them at risk of flooding from rising sea levels and powerful storms.

But cities also offer solutions. They can increase their resilience and resource efficiency, they can be more sustainable. Sustainable is a city that creates the possibility for a better quality of life without using a huge amount of natural resources. In his informative book, The Sustainable City, Steven Cohen looks at case studies of programs and public-private partnerships  from around the world, but with emphasis in the United States, that strive to align urban life and sustainability. He focuses on cities because they provide the dynamic, social and ever changing environment that humans can thrive. Cities provide the choices and the  opportunities for people to realise their own potential, “we just need to make sure we don’t destroy the planet while we explore that potential.”

Cohen explores the elements and the systems required for a sustainable systems from current waste management programs, transportation and public space to energy infrastructure and microgrids and  draw the connection between sustainable processes and sustainable local places. It is a comprehensive and optimistic account that can act as a guide for anyone who cares in shaping an inclusive, green and sustainable environment, from city planners to businesses, to mayors and neighborhood groups.