Summary

Cities and Nature connects environmental processes with social and political actions. The book reconnects science and social science to demonstrate how the city is part of the environment and how it is subject to environmental constraints and opportunities. This second edition has been extensively revised and updated with in-depth examination of theory and critical themes. Greater discussion is given to urbanization trends and megacities; the post-industrial city and global economic changes; developing cities and slums; urban political ecology; the role of the city in climate change; and sustainability.

The book explores the historical relationship between cities and nature, contemporary challenges to this relationship, and attempts taken to create more sustainable cities. The historical context situates urban development and its impact on the environment, and in turn the environmental impact on people in cities. This provides a foundation from which to understand contemporary issues, such as urban political ecology, hazards and disasters, water quality and supply, air pollution and climate change. The book then considers sustainability and how it has been informed by different theoretical approaches. Issues of environmental justice and the role of gender and race are explored. The final chapter examines the ways in which cities are practicing sustainability, from light "greening" efforts such as planting trees, to more comprehensive sustainability plans that integrate the multiple dimensions of sustainability.

The text contains case studies from around the globe, with many drawn from cities in the developing world, as well as reviews of recent research, updated and expanded further reading to highlight relevant films, websites and journal articles. This book is an asset to students and researchers in geography, environmental studies, urban studies and planning and sustainability.

Choice Review

The core argument in this volume, part of a series on critical introductions to urbanism and the city, is that cities are an element of the ecosystem, not separate from it, and that environmental processes are filtered through social arrangements that have effects and exacerbate or ameliorate other effects. The book has three main parts, beginning with a historical view of urban development and growth in environmental context that attends to location and design, coping and reform strategies, and global urbanization. In the second part, Benton-Short (geography, George Washington Univ.) and Short (Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County) review city-nature dynamics, including physical site characteristics, hazards as socially constructed events, cities as biophysical systems, water and air pollution, and waste generation and management. The authors conclude with an assessment of such issues as environmental justice, sprawl, developing world urbanization, and long-term urban sustainability. The book is intended as a supplemental or short-course undergraduate text and is quite accessible, although chapters are of uneven length. The book is well illustrated with both historical and global examples; understandably, it uses New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina to useful and timely advantage to illustrate many of the arguments. Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries. J. S. Wood University of Southern Maine