Sustainability for the 21st Century: Pathways, Programs, and Policies by David Pijawka
There has been a broadening of the city planning agenda and an increasing recognition that cities must consider many different challenges immediately and sustainably that is also helpful. Along with sustainability, there is a suite of complementary words that now make up the language of planners, urban designers, and managers. Resilience has emerged as one such potent word and an aspiration in a world where disasters such as Hurricane Sandy will become more common and cities will become first responders in periods of drought, heat waves, and disease outbreaks. The news is good here, as foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation with its 100 Resilient Cities Initiative are significantly elevating the profile and importance of resilience, and the tools available for advancing urban resilience, and cities, from New York to Rotterdam to Dhaka, are re-thinking the ways in which they occupy and inhabit their space. This suggests that these new adaptive strategies and, more profoundly, new modes of adaptive urban life will provide the means and confidence to meet 21st Century challenges head on. -Timothy Beatley, University of Virginia