ABSTRACT
This book draws on a wide range of conceptual and empirical materials to identify and examine planning and policy approaches that move beyond the imperative of perpetual economic growth. It sketches out a path towards planning theories and practices that can break the cyclical process of urban expansion, crises, and recovery that negatively affect ecosystems and human lives.
To reduce the dramatic social and environmental impact of urbanization, this book offers both a critique of growth-led urban development and a prefiguration of ecologically regenerative and socially just ways of organizing cities and regions. It uncovers emerging possibilities for post-growth planning in the fields of collective housing, mobility, urban commoning, ecological land-use, urban–rural symbiosis, and alternative planning worldviews. It provides a toolkit of concepts and real-life examples for urban scholars, urbanists, activists, architects, and designers seeking to make cities prosper within planetary boundaries.
This book speaks to both experts and beginners in post-growth thinking. It concludes with a manifesto and glossary of key terms for urban scholars, students, and practitioners.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|31 pages
Beginning
chapter 1|16 pages
Uncoupling planning and economic growth: towards post-growth urban principles
part 2|30 pages
Dwelling
chapter 3|14 pages
Housing commons as a degrowth planning practice
part 3|31 pages
Moving
chapter 6|14 pages
Beyond the rule of growth in the transport sector
part 4|31 pages
Governing
chapter 8|14 pages
Hacking the legal
part 5|30 pages
Regulating
chapter 9|14 pages
Planning beyond the backwash of a growth node
part 6|30 pages
Nurturing
chapter 12|14 pages
Towards a Post-Growth Food System
part 7|29 pages
Being
chapter 14|13 pages
Once Upon a Planet
part 8|10 pages
Envisioning