Island Press began with a simple idea: knowledge is power—the power to imagine a better future and find ways for getting us there. Founded in 1984, Island Press’ mission is to provide the best ideas and information to those seeking to understand and protect the environment and create solutions to its complex problems.
Showing 271-300 of 322 items.
Arbitrary Lines
How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
Island Press
It’s time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary—if not sufficient—condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities.
Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.
Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life—where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up.
Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.
Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life—where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up.
City Forward
How Innovation Districts Can Embrace Risk and Strengthen Community
By Matt Enstice and Mike Gluck
Island Press
Innovation districts and anchor institutions—like hospitals and universities—drive economic growth. But the benefits often fail to reach the very neighborhoods they are built in. As CEO of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC), Matt Enstice fosters a different, collaborative approach. City Forward explains how BNMC promotes a shared goal of equity among companies and institutions with diverse motivations. Offering a candid look at BNMC’s setbacks and successes, along with efforts from other institutions nationwide, Enstice shares twelve strategies that innovation districts can harness to weave equity into their core work.
Institutional leadership, business owners, and professionals will find experienced direction here. City Forward is a refreshing look at the brighter futures that we can create through thoughtful collaboration—moving forward, together.
Institutional leadership, business owners, and professionals will find experienced direction here. City Forward is a refreshing look at the brighter futures that we can create through thoughtful collaboration—moving forward, together.
Making Healthy Places, Second Edition
Designing and Building for Well-Being, Equity, and Sustainability
Island Press
Making Healthy Places surveys the many intersections between health and the built environment, from the scale of buildings to the scale of metro areas, and across a range of outcomes, from cardiovascular health and infectious disease to social connectedness and happiness. This new edition is significantly updated, with a special emphasis on equity and sustainability, and takes a global perspective. It provides current evidence not only on how poorly designed places may threaten well-being, but also on solutions that have been found to be effective.
Making Healthy Places is a must-read for students, academics, and professionals in health, architecture, urban planning, civil engineering, parks and recreation, and related fields.
Making Healthy Places is a must-read for students, academics, and professionals in health, architecture, urban planning, civil engineering, parks and recreation, and related fields.
Managing the Climate Crisis
Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought, and Wildfire
By Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw
Island Press
Natural disasters from heat waves to coastal and river flooding will inevitably become worse because of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. Managing them is possible, but planners, designers, and policymakers need to advance adaptation and preventative measures now.
Managing the Climate Crisis: Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought and Wildfire by design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw is a practical guide to addressing this urgent national security problem. Barnett and Bouw draw from the latest scientific findings and include many recent, real-world examples to illustrate how to manage seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages.
Managing the Climate Crisis: Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought and Wildfire by design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw is a practical guide to addressing this urgent national security problem. Barnett and Bouw draw from the latest scientific findings and include many recent, real-world examples to illustrate how to manage seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages.
Place and Prosperity
How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate
Island Press
In Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate, urban planning expert William Fulton takes an engaging look at the importance of connecting to place, how cities are engines of prosperity, and how these two ideas – place and prosperity – lie at the heart of what a city is and, by extension, what our society is all about.
Fulton has been writing about cities over his forty-year career as a journalist, professor, mayor, planning director, and the director of an urban think tank in one of America’s great cities. Place and Prosperity is a curated collection of his writings with new and updated selections and framing material.
Fulton shows that at their best, cities not only inspire and uplift us, but they make our daily life more convenient, more fulfilling, and more prosperous.
Fulton has been writing about cities over his forty-year career as a journalist, professor, mayor, planning director, and the director of an urban think tank in one of America’s great cities. Place and Prosperity is a curated collection of his writings with new and updated selections and framing material.
Fulton shows that at their best, cities not only inspire and uplift us, but they make our daily life more convenient, more fulfilling, and more prosperous.
Rural Renaissance
Revitalizing America’s Hometowns through Clean Power
Island Press
For decades, we’ve heard that local, renewable power is on the horizon, and that cheaper technologies will revolutionize our energy system. Michelle Moore has spent her career proving that this opportunity is already here—and that any community, no matter how small, can build their own clean energy future. In Rural Renaissance, Moore describes five pathways to clean power in rural America and strategies for building it, including energy efficiency, renewable power, resilience (including microgrids and battery storage), the electrification of transportation, and finally, broadband internet. This accessible guide offers a vision of thriving rural communities where clean power is the spark that leads to greater investment, vitality, and equity.
Thicker Than Water
The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis
By Erica Cirino
Island Press
Much of what you’ve heard about plastic pollution may be wrong. Instead of a great island of trash, the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made up of manmade debris spread over hundreds of miles of sea—more like a soup than a floating garbage dump. Less than nine percent of the plastic we create is reused, and microplastic fragments are found almost everywhere, even in our bodies. In Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, journalist Erica Cirino brings readers on a globe-hopping journey to meet the scientists and activists telling the real story of the plastic crisis. New technologies and awareness bring some hope, but Cirino shows that we can only fix the problem if we begin to repair our throwaway culture. Thicker Than Water is an eloquent call to reexamine the systems churning out waves of plastic waste.
Understanding Disaster Insurance
New Tools for a More Resilient Future
Island Press
The frequency and intensity of natural disasters is on the rise. Insurance, an often confusing and unpopular tool, will be critical to successfully emerging from the effects of these crises. Understanding Disaster Insurance provides an accessible introduction to the complexities—and exciting possibilities—of risk transfer markets in the U.S. and around the world. Carolyn Kousky, a leading researcher on disaster risk and insurance, explains how traditional insurance markets came to be structured and why they fall short in meeting the needs of a world coping with climate change. She then offers realistic, yet hopeful, examples of new approaches.
Understanding Disaster Insurance is a useful guidebook for policymakers, innovators, students, and other decision makers working to secure a resilient future—and anyone affected by wind, fire, rain, or flood.
Understanding Disaster Insurance is a useful guidebook for policymakers, innovators, students, and other decision makers working to secure a resilient future—and anyone affected by wind, fire, rain, or flood.
A Poison Like No Other
How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies
By Matt Simon
Island Press
“Informed, utterly blindsiding account.” - Booklist, starred review
It’s falling from the sky and is in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming.
A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis. Matt Simon follows the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity linked to diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer.
There is no easy fix, Simon warns. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.
It’s falling from the sky and is in the air we breathe. It’s in our food, our clothes, and our homes. It’s microplastic and it’s everywhere—including our own bodies. Scientists are just beginning to discover how these tiny particles threaten health, but the studies are alarming.
A Poison Like No Other is the first book to fully explore this new dimension of the plastic crisis. Matt Simon follows the intrepid scientists who travel to the ends of the earth and the bottom of the ocean to understand the consequences of our dependence on plastic. Unlike other pollutants that are single elements or simple chemical compounds, microplastics represent a cocktail of toxicity linked to diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer.
There is no easy fix, Simon warns. But we will never curb our plastic addiction until we begin to recognize the invisible particles all around us.
The Progress Illusion
Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics
Island Press
We live under the illusion of progress: as long as GDP is going up and prices stay low, we accept poverty and pollution as unfortunate but inevitable byproducts of a successful economy. How did we all get duped into believing the fairytale of economics?
In The Progress Illusion, Jon Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. Drawing on his experience as a young economist inoculated in the go-go 1980’s era of "greed is good," Erickson shows how flawed economic thinking shaped our politics and determined the course of American public policy.
While the history of economics is dismal indeed, Erickson is part of a vigorous reform effort grounded in the realities of life on a finite planet. Crafting a new economic story, he shows, is the first step toward turning away from endless growth and towards enduring prosperity.
In The Progress Illusion, Jon Erickson charts the rise of the economic worldview and its infiltration into our daily lives as a theory of everything. Drawing on his experience as a young economist inoculated in the go-go 1980’s era of "greed is good," Erickson shows how flawed economic thinking shaped our politics and determined the course of American public policy.
While the history of economics is dismal indeed, Erickson is part of a vigorous reform effort grounded in the realities of life on a finite planet. Crafting a new economic story, he shows, is the first step toward turning away from endless growth and towards enduring prosperity.
Roadways for People
Rethinking Transportation Planning and Engineering
Island Press
The car-only approach in transportation planning and engineering has led to the construction of roadways that have torn apart and devalued communities, especially Black and Brown communities. Forging a new path and working to repair this damage requires a community solutions-based approach to planning, designing, and building our roadways. In Roadways for People, Lynn Peterson draws from her personal experience and conversations with leaders in the field to showcase new possibilities within transportation engineering and planning. The community solutions-based approach moves away from the narrow standards of traditional transportation projects and focuses instead on a process that involves consistent feedback, learning loops, and meaningful and regular community engagement.
Roadways for People is written to empower professionals and policymakers to create transportation solutions that serve people rather than cars.
Roadways for People is written to empower professionals and policymakers to create transportation solutions that serve people rather than cars.
White Pine
The Natural and Human History of a Foundational American Tree
By John Pastor
Island Press
America was built on white pine. From the 1600s through the Civil War and beyond, it was used to build the nation’s ships and houses, barns, and bridges. It became a symbol of independence, adorning the Americans’ flag at Bunker Hill, and an economic engine, generating three times more wealth than the California gold rush. Yet this popularity came at a cost: by the end of the 19th century, clear-cutting had decimated much of America’s white pine forests. In White Pine: The Natural and Human History of a Foundational American Tree, ecologist and writer John Pastor takes readers on walk through history, connecting the white pine forests that remain today to a legacy of destruction and renewal. Weaving together cultural and natural history with a keen naturalist’s eye, Pastor celebrates the way humans are connected to the forest—and to the larger natural world.
Sundressed
Natural Fabrics and the Future of Clothing
Island Press
For conscious consumers, buying clothes has never been more complicated. Even as fashion brands tout their sustainability, the industry is plagued by pollution, waste, and poor working conditions. If our clothes reflect our values, is it possible to be truly well-dressed?
Sustainable fashion journalist Lucianne Tonti answers with a resounding yes. Beautiful clothes made from natural fabrics including cotton, wool, flax, and cashmere can support rural communities and regenerate landscapes. They can also reduce waste—but only if we invest in garments that stand the test of time rather than chasing fast fashion trends.
Sundressed is an exploration of a revolution taking place in fashion. And it is a love letter to clothing that embodies beauty and value, from farm to closet.
Sustainable fashion journalist Lucianne Tonti answers with a resounding yes. Beautiful clothes made from natural fabrics including cotton, wool, flax, and cashmere can support rural communities and regenerate landscapes. They can also reduce waste—but only if we invest in garments that stand the test of time rather than chasing fast fashion trends.
Sundressed is an exploration of a revolution taking place in fashion. And it is a love letter to clothing that embodies beauty and value, from farm to closet.
Justice and the Interstates
The Racist Truth about Urban Highways
Island Press
Justice and the Interstates, edited by Ryan Reft, Amanda Phillips de Lucas, and Rebecca Retzlaff, examines the toll that the construction of the U.S. Interstate Highway System has taken on vulnerable communities over the past seven decades, details efforts to restore the same, often segregated communities, and makes recommendations for moving forward.
Justice and the Interstates provides community advocates, transportation planners, engineers, historians, and policymakers with a concise but in-depth examination of the damages wrought by highway construction on the nation’s communities of color—from West Baltimore to Birmingham to the San Gabriel Valley. The authors provide a way forward to both address this history and reconcile it with current practices.
Justice and the Interstates provides community advocates, transportation planners, engineers, historians, and policymakers with a concise but in-depth examination of the damages wrought by highway construction on the nation’s communities of color—from West Baltimore to Birmingham to the San Gabriel Valley. The authors provide a way forward to both address this history and reconcile it with current practices.
The Good Garden
How to Nurture Pollinators, Soil, Native Wildlife, and Healthy Food—All in Your Own Backyard
Island Press
What makes a garden good? For Chris McLaughlin, it’s about growing healthy, scrumptious fruits and veggies, but it’s also about giving back. How can your little patch of Earth become a sanctuary for threatened wildlife, sequester carbon, and nurture native plants?
In this joyful guide, McLaughlin gives you all the tricks and tips you need to grow the sustainable garden of your dreams. Gardeners will learn the fundamentals, including how to choose the right plant varieties for their microclimate, and proven methods to fight pests without chemicals. You’ll also discover the nuances of developing a green thumb, from picking species to attract specific types of pollinators to composting techniques based on time available. A good garden offers endless possibilities and The Good Garden offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.
In this joyful guide, McLaughlin gives you all the tricks and tips you need to grow the sustainable garden of your dreams. Gardeners will learn the fundamentals, including how to choose the right plant varieties for their microclimate, and proven methods to fight pests without chemicals. You’ll also discover the nuances of developing a green thumb, from picking species to attract specific types of pollinators to composting techniques based on time available. A good garden offers endless possibilities and The Good Garden offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.
What a Bee Knows
Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees
Island Press
The next time you hear the low buzzing sound of an approaching bee, look closer: the bee has navigated to this particular spot for a reason using a fascinating set of tools. She might be responding to scents on the breeze as her olfactory organs provide a 3D map of an object’s location. She might be tracing the route based on her memories of a particular flower or the electrostatic traces left by other bees. What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees invites us to follow bees’ mysterious pathways and experience their complex and alien world.
Although their brains are incredibly small—just one million neurons compared to humans’ 100 billion—bees have remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. In What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann explores a bee’s way of seeing the world and introduces the scientists who make the journey possible. What a Bee Knows will challenge your idea of a bee’s place in the world—and perhaps our own.
Although their brains are incredibly small—just one million neurons compared to humans’ 100 billion—bees have remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. In What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann explores a bee’s way of seeing the world and introduces the scientists who make the journey possible. What a Bee Knows will challenge your idea of a bee’s place in the world—and perhaps our own.
Humanity's Moment
A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope
Island Press
When climate scientist Joëlle Gergis set to work on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, the research she encountered kept her up at night. Through countless hours spent with the world’s top scientists, she realized that the impacts were occurring faster than anyone had predicted.
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice in which each of us play a part. Humanity’s Moment is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other, and our planet.
In Humanity’s Moment, Joëlle takes us through the science in the IPCC report with unflinching honesty, explaining what it means for our future, while sharing her personal reflections on bearing witness to the climate emergency unfolding in real time. But this is not a lament for a lost world. It is an inspiring reminder that human history is an endless tug-of-war for social justice in which each of us play a part. Humanity’s Moment is a climate scientist’s guide to rekindling hope, and a call to action to restore our relationship with ourselves, each other, and our planet.
The Freedom of the City
By Charles Downing Lay; Introduction by Thomas Campanella
Island Press
Published in 1926, The Freedom of the City by Charles Downing Lay is an eloquent and timely defense of urbanism and city life. Award-winning author and urban historian Thomas J. Campanella has given Lay’s text new life and relevance, with the addition of explanatory notes, imagery, an introduction, and biographical essay, to bring this important work to a new generation of urbanists.
Campanella writes “The Freedom of the City was prescient in 1926 and timely now. Certainly, the essentials of good urbanism extolled in the book—human scale, diversity, walkability, the serendipities of the street; above all, density—are articles of faith among architects and urbanists today.”
Lay’s words are relevant today as density and congestion are once again under siege, especially in our most productive and thriving cities.
Campanella writes “The Freedom of the City was prescient in 1926 and timely now. Certainly, the essentials of good urbanism extolled in the book—human scale, diversity, walkability, the serendipities of the street; above all, density—are articles of faith among architects and urbanists today.”
Lay’s words are relevant today as density and congestion are once again under siege, especially in our most productive and thriving cities.
A New War on Cancer
The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention
By Kristina Marusic; Foreword by Philip J. Landrigan
Island Press
If we can stop cancer before it begins, why don’t we? Fifty years into the war on cancer, nearly twenty percent of all Americans die from the disease. Astonishingly, up to two-thirds of all cancer cases are linked to preventable environmental causes.
In searching for answers, Kristina Marusic met remarkable doctors, scientists, and advocates who are upending our understanding of cancer and how to fight it. They recognize that we will never reduce cancer rates without ridding our lives of the chemicals that increasingly trigger this deadly disease. For Berry, a young woman whose battle with breast cancer is woven throughout these pages, the fight has become personal.
Marusic shows that, collectively, we have the power to prevent many cases like Berry’s. The war on cancer is winnable—if we revolutionize the way we fight.
In searching for answers, Kristina Marusic met remarkable doctors, scientists, and advocates who are upending our understanding of cancer and how to fight it. They recognize that we will never reduce cancer rates without ridding our lives of the chemicals that increasingly trigger this deadly disease. For Berry, a young woman whose battle with breast cancer is woven throughout these pages, the fight has become personal.
Marusic shows that, collectively, we have the power to prevent many cases like Berry’s. The war on cancer is winnable—if we revolutionize the way we fight.
The Jewel Box
How Moths Illuminate Nature’s Hidden Rules
Island Press
A plastic box with a lightbulb attached may seem like an odd birthday present. But for ecologist Tim Blackburn, a moth trap is a captivating window into the world beyond the roof of his London flat. With names like the Dingy Footman, Jersey Tiger, Pale Mottled Willow, and Uncertain, and at least 140,000 identified species, moths are fascinating in their own right. But no moth is an island—they are vital links in the web of life. In The Jewel Box, Blackburn introduces a landscape of unseen connections, showing us how contents of one small box can illuminate the workings of all nature.
Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World
Learning to Thrive Without Growth
By Alan Mallach
Island Press
Over the past hundred years, the global motto has been “more, more, more” in terms of growth – of population, of the built environment, of human and financial capital, and of all manner of worldly goods. But reality is changing from the population boom of the 1960s and 1970s, as the earth’s population begins to decline.
In Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World, urban policy expert Alan Mallach seeks to understand how declining population and economic growth, coupled with the other forces that will influence their fates, particularly climate change, will affect the world’s cities over the coming decades.
Mallach has woven together his vast experience, research, and analysis in this fascinating, realistic-yet-hopeful look at how smaller, shrinking cities can thrive, despite the daunting challenges they face.
In Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World, urban policy expert Alan Mallach seeks to understand how declining population and economic growth, coupled with the other forces that will influence their fates, particularly climate change, will affect the world’s cities over the coming decades.
Mallach has woven together his vast experience, research, and analysis in this fascinating, realistic-yet-hopeful look at how smaller, shrinking cities can thrive, despite the daunting challenges they face.
Inclusive Transportation
A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities
By Veronica Davis; Foreword by tamika l. butler
Island Press
How do you change a system that was never designed to be equitable? In Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities, transportation expert Veronica O. Davis shines a light on the inequitable and often destructive practice of transportation planning and engineering. She calls for new thinking and more diverse leadership to create transportation networks that connect people to jobs, education, opportunities, and to each other.
Davis aims to disrupt the status quo of the transportation industry. She urges transportation professionals to reflect on past injustices and elevate current practice to do the hard work that results in more than an idea and a catchphrase.
Inclusive Transportation is a call to action and a practical approach to shaping communities based on principles of justice and equity.
Davis aims to disrupt the status quo of the transportation industry. She urges transportation professionals to reflect on past injustices and elevate current practice to do the hard work that results in more than an idea and a catchphrase.
Inclusive Transportation is a call to action and a practical approach to shaping communities based on principles of justice and equity.
Hazardous Seas
A Sociotechnical Framework for Early Tsunami Detection and Warning
Edited by Louise K. Comfort and Harkunti P. Rahayu; Foreword by Dwikorita Karnawati and Ir. Hammam Riza
Island Press
Tsunamis are infrequent but terrifying hazards for coastal communities. Difficult to predict, they materialize with little warning, claiming thousands of lives and causing billions of dollars in damage. Now a groundbreaking new approach to tsunami detection and warning developed by an international team of researchers that relies on low-cost underwater sensors and networks of smartphone communication gives at-risk coastal communities an economically viable, scientifically sound means to protect themselves.
Hazardous Seas, edited by disaster preparedness experts Louise K. Comfort and Harkunti P. Rahayu, is an invaluable guide for policy makers and international NGOs looking to save lives from tsunamis and mitigate crippling damage to communities. It also provides a comprehensive overview of tsunami detection and warning for students of engineering, computer science, planning, policy, and economic and environmental analysis.
Hazardous Seas, edited by disaster preparedness experts Louise K. Comfort and Harkunti P. Rahayu, is an invaluable guide for policy makers and international NGOs looking to save lives from tsunamis and mitigate crippling damage to communities. It also provides a comprehensive overview of tsunami detection and warning for students of engineering, computer science, planning, policy, and economic and environmental analysis.
Beyond Greenways
The Next Step for City Trails and Walking Routes
Island Press
Would you experience your city differently if your doorstep were a trailhead? Many people don’t have close-by, safe places to walk, despite walking’s known benefits. In Beyond Greenways: The Next Step for City Trails and Walking Routes, greenways expert Robert Searns introduces a new generation of more accessible pathways that stitch together urban and suburban areas.
Searns introduces two models—grand loop trails and town walks. Grand loop trails are 20 to 350-mile systems that encircle metro areas. Town walks are shorter—2 to 6-mile routes in cities. He then lays out how to plan, design, and build support for them, drawing inspiration from trails in the US and abroad.
Planners, trail advocates, and community leaders will find the tools here to develop successful and affordable trails. Now is the time to pursue accessible pedestrian routes for this, and future, generations.
Searns introduces two models—grand loop trails and town walks. Grand loop trails are 20 to 350-mile systems that encircle metro areas. Town walks are shorter—2 to 6-mile routes in cities. He then lays out how to plan, design, and build support for them, drawing inspiration from trails in the US and abroad.
Planners, trail advocates, and community leaders will find the tools here to develop successful and affordable trails. Now is the time to pursue accessible pedestrian routes for this, and future, generations.
At the Table
The Chef's Guide to Advocacy
Island Press
When Katherine Miller was first asked to train chefs to be advocates, she thought the idea was ludicrous. This was a group known for short tempers and tattoos, not for saving the world. But she quickly learned that chefs and other leaders in the restaurant industry are some of the most powerful forces for change in our troubled food system. Chefs are leading hunger relief efforts, supporting local farmers, fighting food waste, confronting racism and sexism in the industry, and much more.
In At the Table, Miller presents the essential techniques she developed for the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change. Readers will learn how to focus their philanthropic efforts; pinpoint their audience and develop their argument; recruit allies and support action; and maybe most importantly, grab people’s attention in a crowded media landscape. You don’t have to be a celebrity chef to change the food system; you just need the will and the tools in this unique guide.
In At the Table, Miller presents the essential techniques she developed for the James Beard Foundation’s Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change. Readers will learn how to focus their philanthropic efforts; pinpoint their audience and develop their argument; recruit allies and support action; and maybe most importantly, grab people’s attention in a crowded media landscape. You don’t have to be a celebrity chef to change the food system; you just need the will and the tools in this unique guide.
Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation
Island Press
Our population is aging—by 2034, the US will have more people over 65 than under 18, and older residents make up a disproportionate number of casualties from natural disasters. In Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation, community resilience and housing expert Danielle Arigoni argues that we cannot achieve true resilience until communities adopt interventions that work to meet the needs of their oldest residents.
Arigoni explores how to integrate age-friendly resilience into community planning and disaster preparedness efforts through new planning approaches. These include an age-friendly process, and a planning framework dedicated to inclusive disaster recovery.
Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation will help professionals and concerned citizens understand how to best plan for both the aging of our population and the climate changes underway to create communities that serve the needs of older adults better, not only during disasters but for all the days in between.
Arigoni explores how to integrate age-friendly resilience into community planning and disaster preparedness efforts through new planning approaches. These include an age-friendly process, and a planning framework dedicated to inclusive disaster recovery.
Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation will help professionals and concerned citizens understand how to best plan for both the aging of our population and the climate changes underway to create communities that serve the needs of older adults better, not only during disasters but for all the days in between.
Over the Seawall
Tsunamis, Cyclones, Drought, and the Delusion of Controlling Nature
Island Press
In March 2011, people in a coastal Japanese city stood atop a seawall watching the approach of the tsunami that would kill them. They believed—naively—that the huge concrete barrier would save them. Instead, they perished, betrayed by the very thing built to protect them.
Academics call it maladaptation; in simple terms, it’s about solutions that backfire. Over the Seawall tells the stories behind these unintended consequences and the fixes that do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the ribbon of water supporting both farms and cities in parched Arizona, we visit engineering marvels once deemed too smart and too big to fail. After each we better understand how complicated, grandiose schemes fail. Ultimately, we learn that if we are to adapt successfully to climate change, we must recognize that working with nature is not surrender but the only way to assure a secure future.
Academics call it maladaptation; in simple terms, it’s about solutions that backfire. Over the Seawall tells the stories behind these unintended consequences and the fixes that do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the ribbon of water supporting both farms and cities in parched Arizona, we visit engineering marvels once deemed too smart and too big to fail. After each we better understand how complicated, grandiose schemes fail. Ultimately, we learn that if we are to adapt successfully to climate change, we must recognize that working with nature is not surrender but the only way to assure a secure future.
Purified
How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water
By Peter Annin
Island Press
Water shortages are plaguing communities from coast to coast, and recycled water could help close that gap. In Purified: How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water, veteran journalist Peter Annin shows that wastewater has become a surprising weapon in America’s war against water scarcity. In five water-strapped states—California, Texas, Virginia, Nevada, and Florida—current filtration technology is transforming sewage into something akin to distilled water, free of chemicals and safe to drink. But sensationalist media coverage has repeatedly crippled water recycling efforts. Can public opinion turn in time to avoid the worst consequences?
Purified’s fast-paced narrative cuts through the fearmongering and misinformation to make the case that recycled water is direly needed in the climate-change era. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore—and that includes sewage.
Purified’s fast-paced narrative cuts through the fearmongering and misinformation to make the case that recycled water is direly needed in the climate-change era. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore—and that includes sewage.
People, Planet, Design
A Practical Guide to Realizing Architecture’s Potential
By Corey Squire
Island Press
In the US, design choices made by the typical architecture firm employee each year can reduce emissions by about 300 times that of an average American. What if great design were defined by its ability to cool the planet, heal communities, enhance ecological functioning, and advance justice?
In People, Planet, Design, architect Corey Squire builds the case, provides the data, and lays out the practical tools for human-centered architecture. This approach integrates beauty and delight with an awareness of every design choice’s impact. Outcome-focused with a deep dive into practical strategies, the book showcases ten building systems that embody design excellence.
Essential reading for architects who want to transform what the profession means, People, Planet, Design pioneers a new vision and sets readers up with clear guidance for implementation.
In People, Planet, Design, architect Corey Squire builds the case, provides the data, and lays out the practical tools for human-centered architecture. This approach integrates beauty and delight with an awareness of every design choice’s impact. Outcome-focused with a deep dive into practical strategies, the book showcases ten building systems that embody design excellence.
Essential reading for architects who want to transform what the profession means, People, Planet, Design pioneers a new vision and sets readers up with clear guidance for implementation.
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