Towards Green Growth & Low-Carbon Urban Development

Cities face critical challenges connected to population growth, urbanisation, and climate change. Fundamental transformations in urban planning, community design, and infrastructure development are absolutely needed to address the problems raised by land use changes. A transition from conventional urban development models to a green or low-carbon future needs to change the system of the "systems", such as energy, water, waste, mobility, and infrastructure systems. Cities are facing huge pressure and great opportunities to make these transitions through more effective arrangement of land use development footprints. This book introduces the significant trend of urban planning towards green growth and low-carbon development patterns and reviews the history of urban development models while illustrating key concepts underpinning theories of green growth and low-carbon development. Introduced in this book are broad concepts of urban and land use planning, and a description of practical planning approaches. The authors explain how to incorporate core "green" and "low-carbon" concepts into urban planning and community development. Also discussed are the tools and processes necessary to develop a green and low-carbon development strategy where the major methods include energy conservation and efficiency, transportation planning, liveability and walkability techniques, environmental planning, low impact community design skills, planning support systems, and public participation. A diverse range of examples, from North America, Europe, Africa, and China, are provided to analyse the barriers and solutions in socio-technical transitions emerging in different urban contexts. An international context of urban planning and a proposed model to assess future conditions, evaluate policy choices, create visions, and compare scenarios is presented. This book can help academics, policy makers, practitioners and researchers interested in the development of green cities and low-carbon development.