Review

David Satterthwaite (Editor), The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Cities, London, Earthscan, 1999, 478 pages, ISBN 185383 601 X (paperback), £ 16.95

Cities, by and large, still get a bad press. Many modern writers have echoed James Thompson´s lyrical pessimism of 1880: "The City is of Night, perchance of Death". In the recent epidemic of literature on sustainable development, cities are more often than not seen as the problem. As David Sattherwaite notes in the introduction to this weighty tome, most people writing on sustainable development in general, do not also write on sustainable cities. Appropriately enough, this volume starts with a contribution by one of the notable exceptions to this rule. William Rees, famous for developing ecological footprints as sustainabiliy indicators, has also always contributed to the urban planning literature. Here he shows clearly that, so far, environmental management and planning have only achieved cosmetic improvements. Planners have acted as "developmental traffic cops" (p. 45); they have failed to change "fundamentally unsustainable environment-economy relationships" (p. 42). His sustainability check-list for planners is as simple as it is radical. Developments should only be licensed if they contribute to any of the following goals: "reducing energy and material use, lower levels of waste production, the enhancement of natural capital stocks and greater social justice and equity" (p. 43).

Not all of the book is this challenging to the mainstream or so overtly prescriptive. Many different conceptions of sustainable urban development are represented. Contributions range from (worthy, if dull) official documents produced by Habitat II and the World Health Organization, to visionary urban design solutions by American Green Joan Roelofs and excellent sectorial studies by well known academic experts such as Peter Newman (on transport).

The book thus lives up to the editor´s stated desire to "mix conceptual works with case studies" (p.3). It also, more or less, succeeds in giving a truly global perspective. Though Africa is, as always, the least discussed continent in the book, the ´Third World´ as a whole is well represented. The editor has shamelessly culled case studies from his own books and the journal Environment and Urbanization (which he also edits). This is testimony to the importance of both these books and the journal. To those of us not dealing with Third World urban development on a day to day basis, the resulting chapters are real eye openers. Many of the Local Agenda 21 processes described, for example, seem far more sophisticated than plenty of their western counterparts (e.g. Chapter 14 and 15). However, some of the lessons (such as the need for grassroots ownership of the processes) are the same as are, inevitably, the problems (it is, for example, often difficult to attract the business sector to contribute meaningfully; and Local Agenda 21s are far better on consultation than on implementation).
As the chapters have all been previously published, this book suffers from the usual weaknesses of Readers: there are a good number of repetitions and, rather than being cutting edge, the book reflects the state of the field a few months (or even years) ago. The latter makes it a particularly good teaching tool, however; it provides a thorough grounding in the field. The repetitions are not all bad either. At times, at least, the contributions illuminate the same material (e.g. the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, or works on urban density) in different ways.

Only in the last four chapters, which all deal with sustainability indicators in one way or another, does one occasionally get a sense of going around in circles. This is partly because most of the other chapters also discuss sustainability indicators at least in passing. To have such a torrent of information on this topic at the end of the book is thus a bit excessive. The last two chapters particularly, which address the global impacts of cities, would have been better placed towards the beginning of the book.

More crucially, all the chapters on sustainability indicators miss one important policy-oriented indicator methodology. The whole book fails to mention environmental space, a key input-oriented indicator system developed by the Wuppertal Institute and Friends of the Earth. Environmental space is used in influential national accounts of what is required for sustainable development (compare McLaren, D. et al, Tomorrow´s World: Britain´s share in a sustainable future, London, Earthscan, 1998) and can be fruitfully adapted to studying cities. Especially in Donella Meadows´ overview chapter on sustainability indicators (chapter 17), this omission is thus inexcusable.

Nonetheless: this book is an essential guide through the maze of works on urban sustainability. It is a brilliant resource and, unlike many academic works of this length, thoroughly readable. If only it could help to spread the news that cities, far from being "of (the) Night", are essential to achieving sustainable development!

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