Sustainable Cities

Dickson D. Despommier proposes a visionary yet achievable plan for creating a new, self-sustaining urban landscape. He argues that we can find solutions through the concept of biomimicry: emulating successful strategies found in nature. A better city is possible if we heed the lessons that forests and trees teach about how to store carbon, grow food, collect rainwater, and convert sunlight into energy.

Public Gardens and Livable Cities uses a prescriptive approach to synthesize a range of public, private, and nonprofit initiatives from municipalities throughout the country. In doing so, the authors examine the initiatives from a practical perspective to identify how they were implemented, their sustainability, the obstacles they encountered, the impact of the initiatives on their populations, and how they dealt with the communities' underlying social problems. 

Do you have a small backyard space that is brimming with potential? Have you always wanted to grow your own food and save up money in the process? Are you looking to take a simpler, more self-sufficient path in life? You’re in luck! If you’re looking to create a highly productive, sustainable space that provides homegrown fruits, vegetables, honey, eggs, milk, and meat...then Sustainable Backyard Homesteading for Beginners by D.G. Smith is for you!

The urban centers are becoming more and more dangerous with a steady increase of homeless tent cities littered by discarded junky drug paraphernalia. Those living, of necessity, in these homeless encampments are themselves in an ever-dangerous environment, holding onto every scrap of earthly possession, housed in stolen shopping carts, to not have these last vestiges of worldly belongings being stolen by others, leaving them even more destitute. The political policies of the defunding of police have limited those who remain in law enforcement.

In Farm the City, Michael Ableman, the “Spartacus of Sustainable Food Activism”, offers a guide to setting up and running a successful urban farm, derived from the success of Sole Food Street Farms, one of the largest urban agriculture enterprises in North America. Sole Food Street Farms spans four acres of land in Vancouver, produces 25 tons of food annually, provides meaningful work for dozens of disadvantaged people, and has improved the surrounding community in countless ways.

Finally, a book that simplifies the beginning skills of urban homesteading and provides easy lessons for those ready to be more self-sufficient. We are all different and live in different situations. This book will get you started in ways you might not have thought of, no matter where you are.