Lester Brown on 'Designing Sustainable Cities'

"Our global civilization today is on an economic path that is environmentally unsustainable, a path that is leading us toward economic decline and eventual collapse," says Lester Brown in Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

Chapter 11, "Designing Sustainable Cities," goes into detail about urban planning aspects of environmental sustainability, and includes chapters entitled The Ecology of Cities, Redesigning Urban Transport, Farming in the City, Reducing Urban Water Use, The Challenge of Urban Slums, and Cities for People. The full book can be downloaded from the link below.

"If China one day has three cars for every four people, U.S. style, it will have 1.1 billion cars. The whole world today has 800 million cars. To provide the roads, highways, and parking lots to accommodate such a vast fleet, China would have to pave an area equal to the land it now plants in rice. It would need 99 million barrels of oil a day. Yet the world currently produces 84 million barrels per day and may never produce much more."

Thanks to Steve Raney