Cities, People, Planet
‘Cities People Planet: Liveable Cities for a Sustainable World’ by Herbert Girardet; Wiley-Academy, 2004. 304pp
Reviewed by Austin Williams | 9 October 2006
This is effectively another reworking of the 10-year-old The Gaia Atlas of Cities: New Directions for Sustainable Urban Living. All the usual suspects are displayed, albeit with significant new additions and examples.
As with Reader and Jacobs, Mesopotamia gets a look in and Girardet provides an interesting historical take on ancient cultures, seemingly echoing Jared Diamond – who is critiqued in Jacobs’ book – that environmental and geographical circumstances (especially deforestation for Girardet) have been the key factors leading to the demise or preservation of civilisations.
This is a much more measured book than we are used to from Girardet although he still is happy to indulge his pet subjects with alacrity: from the problems of (unnatural) meat-eating for Chinese people; the joys of cycling and recycling; the wonders of public transport in (third world) Curitiba; the notion that dams are problems rather than solutions, etc. To a certain extent, because Girardet is more sure of himself and happy to bang his eco-message home, this book is a useful companion piece to Reader’s Cities.
