Greening the planet.

CITIES PEOPLE PLANET

By Herbert Girardet. Chichester: John Wiley. 2005. [pounds sterling]19.99

In the context of the global urban population explosion Herbert Girardet asks how a sustainable relationship can be established between cities and planet. Through a historical survey of the city, here understood as 'eco-technical system', he identifies in the modern condition a fracture between urban communities and their immediate locale. Cities operate no longer as circular but linear ecosystems--ie, we now produce 'waste'. In the age of the global marketplace an increasingly atomised urban society consumes products and resources with little thought for their origin or future. So far, so familiar. Richard Rogers said the same eight years ago in Cities for a Small Planet (Faber & Faber 1997).

Cities People Planet claims to be a 'resource for responding to the challenges of urbanisation'. Accordingly, the second half of the book is devoted to the highlights of global sustainable urban practice. Ninety case studies, sometimes only a couple of sentences long, show cities tweaking the inputs, processes and outputs of the 'eco-technical' system. Girardet is an acknowledged authority in this field, yet the depth of his understanding is obscured by the breadth of material. While the level of critique and analysis offered might suit an A-level Geography class, it could hardly be described as a resource for the professionals who are shaping our urban environments.

In general the text is slowed by frequent resort to lists of statistics that would be conveyed more effectively in a simple graph or diagram. This tendency, along with the anecdotal and repetitive style, gives the strong impression that we are reading a collection of lecture transcripts--rather than new work.

Contemporary London occupies an ecological footprint 293 times its surface area. The urgency of Girardet's plea for creative commitment and energy from designers is clear. A rigorous treatment of a few key case studies would have made Cities People Planet a truly useful resource, but as it stands, my recommendation is to save your money and a tree by reading his lecture transcripts online.