Alternative Routes to the Sustainable City: Austin, Curitiba, and Frankfurt

摘要

Steven A. Moore, Bartlett Cocke Professor of Architecture and Planning at the University of Texas, Austin, has written an important and formidable book. Moore's principle thesis is that there are multiple pathways for cities to become more sustainable, and that cities can make important strides without discovering one right way to do it. Perhaps most important, Moore's argument focuses on the city politics of becoming more sustainable, suggesting that indeed there is no single kind of politics or political process that leads to greater sustainability. Although numerous other books, including Thomas Prugh, Robert Costanza, and Herman Daly's fine book, Local Politics of Global Sustainability (Washington, D.C., Island Press, 2000), as well as my own Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003) have tried to tackle the issue of what kinds of political processes seem to be better able to yield sustainable policies and practices, in my view Moore's book is by far the best entry in this field to date. Let me explain why I say this.