ABSTRACT

 This second edition of Pragmatic Sustainability proposes a pragmatic, discursive and pluralistic approach to thinking about sustainability.. Rather than suggesting a single solution to the problem of how to live sustainably, this collection discusses broader approaches to social and environmental change.

Eight continuing authors and seven new ones adjust their dispositions toward rapidly changing and still unsustainable conditions, forging agreements and disagreements on five overlapping themes: the Grounds for Sustainability; the critique of Technological Culture; the need to conceive of Sustainability in Place; in Cities; finally asking how should we reimagine the fraught relationship between Civil Society, Industry and Regulation? Editor Steven A. Moore asks how a set of ideas now more than a century old remains relevant. A partial answer can be found in reconstructing the very modern ideas confronted by those who came to call themselves Pragmatists at the beginning of the twentieth century—evolution, ecology and design. Moore argues that we have yet to develop dispositions in theory and practice that critically integrate these ideas into sustainable development.

In sum, this new edition provides a fresh and hopeful look at the wicked problems deliberated by almost anyone engaged in adapting to the always changing conditions of the built world.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

part |54 pages

Grounds for sustainability

chapter 1|13 pages

The many meanings of sustainability

A competing paradigms approach

chapter 2|18 pages

Equity

The awkward E in sustainable development

chapter 3|18 pages

Sustainable development

Complexity, balance, and a critique of rational planning

part |50 pages

Technological cultures

part |52 pages

Sustainability and place

chapter 7|14 pages

Beyond Japonisme

The adaptive pragmatism of Japanese urbanism

chapter 9|14 pages

Cautious engagement

Historic preservation and sustainable design

part |57 pages

Sustainability and cities

chapter 10|18 pages

The nature of Mill Creek

Landscape literacy and design for ecological democracy

chapter 11|16 pages

Aligning disconnected frames in action

The case of São Paulo's Zeladoria Ambiental (Environmental Stewards)

chapter 12|19 pages

Regenerative sustainability

Rethinking neighborhood sustainability

part |57 pages

Civil society, industry, and regulation

chapter 13|20 pages

Social movements, civil society, and sustainability politics

Alternative pathways and industrial innovation

chapter 15|15 pages

Incommensurable paradigms

Values and the environment

chapter |3 pages

Afterword