Abstract

This book is a manifesto for real urban change. Today, our urban areas are held back by corporate greed, loss of public space and rising inequality. This book highlights how cities are locked into unsustainable and damaging practices, and how exciting new routes can be unlocked for real change.

Across the world, city innovators are putting real sustainability into practice - from transforming abandoned public spaces and setting up community co-operatives, to rewilding urban nature and powering up civic energy.

Paul Chatterton explores the power of these city experiments that harness the creative power of the collective, focusing on five themes: compassion, imagination, experimentation, co-production and transformation; and four city systems: mobility, energy, community and nature. Imagining radical alternatives, such as car-free, post-carbon, common and 'bio-cities', this is a toolkit for unlocking real urban change.
'As global crises multiply and politicians seem unable to act, many are turning to the local for signs of hope... Chatterton makes a powerful appeal for cities to rise to act on climate change, common ownership and genuine sustainability'
Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for South West England and Gibraltar
'Uplifting in vision and down-to-earth in practice, this book makes sustainable cities visible, tangible and irresistible'
Kate Raworth, author of 'Doughnut Economics'
'This is an empowering book, with a manifesto for change that works really well - especially with people fed up with over-hyped 'smart cities' rhetoric and top-down political fixes'
Jonathan Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future
'Without ever losing sight of what's at stake, Chatterton's masterful and accessible book is a must for anyone interested in taking back cities for people and planet'
J.K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron and Stephen Healy, authors of 'Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide For Transforming Our Communities'