The Agile City: Building Well-being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change

Abstract

Journalist and urban analyst James Russell argues that we'll slow global warming more quickly - and blunt its effects - by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. "The Agile City" shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly. Adapting buildings (39 per cent of greenhouse gas emission) and communities (slashing the 33 per cent of transportation-related emissions) offers numerous other benefits that tax gimmicks and massive alternative-energy investments can't match. "The Agile City" highlights tactics that create multiplier effects, which means that ecologically driven change can shore up economic opportunity, can make more productive workplaces, and can help revive neglected communities. Being able to look at multiple effects and multiple benefits of political choices and private investments is essential to assuring wealth and well-being in the future. Green, Russell writes, grows the future.