SMART GROWTH. FROM SPRAWL TO SUSTAINABILITY

This book shows how urban sprawl is unsustainable in an age of climate change and peak oil, and challenges the UK to develop a 'Smart Growth' approach to improve the quality of life in our overcrowded island. People who live in compact traditional towns have far smaller environmental footprints than those who live in sprawling suburbs. So is urban sprawl inevitable? Are there better ways of getting about? And can 60 million people crammed into a land bulging at the seams ever find ways of treating it with respect? Smart Growth argues that we should look for the answer to America - the country that embraced urban sprawl and car dependency on a far grander scale than we ever did. There is much we can learn from its 'Smart Growth' movement, which is successfully arguing for compact cities, rail-based transit systems and restoring communities ruined by decades of self-centred suburban life.