Urban and Regional Agriculture: Building Resilient Food Systems explores the sustainable integration of food provision, distribution and consumption through urban farms, agricultural systems, user communities and structural facilities designed to optimize food production and consumption. The book addresses the fundamental and pressing challenges of urban planning problems, waste minimization, food sourcing, access and equity issues, and multiple land use optimization. Sections cover the need and opportunities of urban agriculture, discuss tradition and transition, space and regulatory topics, explore the range of urban agriculture options (aquaculture to urban permaculture), discuss support structures and constructs of physically creating urban agricultural areas, and much more. Edited and authored by leading experts in the field, this volume will be valuable for those working to address issues of food security in urban environments.

Urban Energy Transition, second edition, is the definitive science and practice-based compendium of energy transformations in the global urban system. This volume is a timely and rich resource for all, as citizens, companies and their communities, from remote villages to megacities and metropolitan regions, rapidly move away from fossil fuel and nuclear power, to renewable energy as civic infrastructure investment, source of revenue and prosperity, and existential resilience strategy.

The greatest challenge of our time is to build a world based on the sustainable use of renewable power. Our massive dependence on fossil fuels has upset the very climatic system that made human evolution possible. The global economy and its financial system are in jeopardy, running hot on overtly cheap yet increasingly costly and fast depleting oil. A 100% renewable world is seen by many as an impossible dream in anything but the very long term. But not only do a growing number of initiatives and plans dare to make the change but many have already achieved it. This rich collection presents a series of pioneering efforts and their champions, and the paths to their successes. Ranging from initiatives by individuals to visions for companies, communities and entire countries, it defeats tired economic and technical counter-arguments, showing how the schemes featured not only can and do work but do so economically and with available technology. The book is introduced by incisive writing by Peter Droege, explaining the challenges and framing a roadmap towards a 100% renewable reality.

This compendium of 29 chapters from 18 countries contains both fundamental and advanced insight into the inevitable shift from cities dominated by the fossil-fuel systems of the industrial age to a renewable-energy based urban development framework. The cross-disciplinary handbook covers a range of diverse yet relevant topics, including: carbon emissions policy and practice; the role of embodied energy; urban thermal performance planning; building efficiency services; energy poverty alleviation efforts; renewable community support networks; aspects of household level bio-fuel markets; urban renewable energy legislation, programs and incentives; innovations in individual transport systems; global urban mobility trends; implications of intelligent energy networks and distributed energy supply and storage; and the case for new regional monetary systems and lifestyles. Presented are practical and principled aspects of technology, economics, design, culture and society, presenting perspectives that are both local and international in scope and relevance.

Frequently the site of crisis or turmoil, individual cities can be fragile environments. For the first time in history, however, the future of the entire urban system is being thrown into doubt. Catastrophic climate changes threaten the life support of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of urban dwellers around the world. Supplies of fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas, are declining worldwide. Modern cities not only depend on petroleum products for their power, but also for their goods and services - including the making and packaging of virtually all food. How might this precarious global condition be turned around? How can the energy infrastructure of cities, towns and rural settlements be restructured, to confront the environmental challenges of our time? Could a new, positive global vision emerge out of the impending, massive shift from unsustainable fuels to a renewable energy base?

Opening with a definition of renewable power, the book concisely sets out the fundamental logic and philosophical framework of the urban energy revolution. It then progresses to look at how cities best attempt adaptation to accelerating, anthropogenic climate change: by mitigating it and fighting its root causes. Two central chapters map the spatial implications of the urban renewable energy transformation and the new technologies that might be involved in successfully creating the renewable city. The guide not only compares different approaches to creating renewable cities, but also examines various sustainable building assessment and design tools. The volume concludes with an easy to use best-practice template for local governments and planners, applying lessons from advanced citiesaround the world