Green Cities of Europe

In the absence of federal leadership, states and localities are stepping forward to address critical problems like climate change, urban sprawl, and polluted water and air. Fortunately, they have dynamic, innovative models outside U.S. borders. Green Cities of Europe draws on the world's best examples of sustainability to show how other cities can become greener and more livable.

Timothy Beatley has brought together leading experts from Paris, Freiburg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Venice, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and London to illustrate groundbreaking practices in urban planning. These cities are creating greenways, improving public transit, conserving energy, instituting 'green audits' for government, and strengthening their city centers.

With Green Cities of Europe, Beatley offers the U.S. planning community not only a vision of holistic sustainability, but a clear guide to accomplishing it at home.

Timothy Beatley is Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last eighteen years.

His primary teaching and research interests are in environmental planning and policy, with special emphasis on coastal and natural hazards planning, environmental values and ethics, and biodiversity conservation. He has published extensively in these areas, including the following recent books: Ethical Land Use; Habitat Conservation Planning: Endangered Species and Urban Growth; Natural Hazard Mitigation; and An Introduction to Coastal Zone Management.

In recent years much of his research and writing has been focused on the subject of sustainable communities, and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. He is the author of many books, including Biophilic Cities, Resilient Cities, and Green Urbanism (Island Press).