ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses how planners can and other urban authorities design and manage urban infrastructure in ways that prioritize human needs, are less damaging to the natural resource base, and produce less waste. It focuses on five urban infrastructure areas: waste, water, and energy, transportation, and food systems. In the area of urban water management, inefficiency and overuse of water in wealthy, industrialized countries must be addressed by decreasing drawdown of the water supply. In the area of urban waste management, economic activities in prosperous nations must be restructured around a resource recognition approach that is designed to significantly reduce waste in production and distribution processes through reduce, re-use, and recycling processes. In the areas of urban transportation and land use, urban planners and policy makers must begin to support land uses that have considerably lower impacts on the integrity of ecosystems.
