BiblioVault - Books about Barnett, Jonathan

Cities in Our Future

Edited by Robert Geddes; Foreword by Wally N'Dow; Introduction by Ellen Posner

Island Press, 1997

By the year 2000, half of humanity will live in urban areas. The problems of large-scale urbanization are profound, and coping with growth in the world's cities will be the most pressing challenge of the 21st century.In June 1996, the third in a series of United Nations sponsored conferences on global concerns was held: the Conference on Human Settlements, Habitat II. In preparation for that meeting, Robert Geddes, one of the nation's most respected and influential architects and urban designers, invited leading experts to New York to consider the experience of urban areas in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in order to develop concrete proposals for improving our built environment. Cities in Our Future presents and examines issues set forth at that gathering.Urban and regional planners, architects, urban designers, and other experts from across North America examine the impact of a city's growth and form on the ability of its citizens to achieve and maintain social equity and environmental health. Case studies of five North American metropolitan areas -- New York, Toronto, Cascadia (Vancouver, Seattle, Portland), Mexico City, and Los Angeles -- are presented, with in-depth analyses of their physical terrain, design, planning, and development. Contributors discuss problems the cities have experienced, how those problems have been handled, and strategies for avoiding or managing similar problems in the future. They consider historical and contemporary transformations of the cities as well as issues of environment, equity, sustainable development, governance, and civic design.In addition to the case studies, Cities in Our Future features a foreword by Dr. Wally N'Dow, secretary-general of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements-Habitat II, that describes the global nature of urbanization problems; an insightful introduction by urban critic Ellen Posner that provides an overview of important issues facing urban areas in the twenty-first century; a broad examination of the concept of social equity by political philosopher Alan Ryan of Oxford University; and a concise description of environmental health issues by John Spengler of the Harvard School of Public Health. The distinguished contributors representing the five urban regions are Alan Artibise, Jonathan Barnett, Gardner Church, Ken Greenberg, Marilou McPhedran, Ann Vernez Moudon, Xavier Cortes Rocha, Ethan Seltzer, Richard Weinstein, and Robert Yaro.

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Designing the Megaregion

Meeting Urban Challenges at a New Scale

Jonathan Barnett

Island Press, 2020

The US population is estimated to grow by more than 110 million people by 2050, and much of this growth will take place where cities and their suburbs are expanding to meet the suburbs of neighboring cities, creating continuous urban megaregions. There are now at least a dozen megaregions in the US. If current trends continue unchanged, new construction in these megaregions will put more and more stress on the natural systems that are necessary for our existence, will make highway gridlock and airline delays much worse, and will continue to attract investment away from older areas. However, the megaregion in 2050 is still a prediction. Future economic and population growth could go only to environmentally safe locations. while helping repair landscapes damaged by earlier development. Improved transportation systems could reduce highway and airport congestion. Some new investment could be drawn to by-passed parts of older cities, which are becoming more separate and unequal.

In Designing the Megaregion, planning and urban design expert Jonathan Barnett describes how to redesign megaregional growth using mostly private investment, without having to wait for massive government funding or new governmental structures. Barnett explains practical initiatives to make new development fit into its environmental setting, especially important as the climate changes; reorganize transportation systems to pull together all the components of these large urban regions; and redirect the market forces which are making megaregions very unequal places.

There is an urgent need to begin designing megaregions, and Barnett shows that the ways to make major improvements are already available.

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Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs

Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley

Island Press, 2015

As world population grows, and more people move to cities and suburbs, they place greater stress on the operating system of our whole planet. But urbanization and increasing densities also present our best opportunity for improving sustainability, by transforming urban development into desirable, lower-carbon, compact and walkable communities and business centers.

Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley seek to demonstrate that a sustainable built and natural environment can be achieved through ecodesign, which integrates the practice of planning and urban design with environmental conservation, through normal business practices and the kinds of capital programs and regulations already in use in most communities. Ecodesign helps adapt the design of our built environment to both a changing climate and a rapidly growing world, creating more desirable places in the process.

In six comprehensively illustrated chapters, the authors explain ecodesign concepts, including the importance of preserving and restoring natural systems while also adapting to climate change; minimizing congestion on highways and at airports by making development more compact, and by making it easier to walk, cycle and take trains and mass transit; crafting and managing regulations to insure better placemaking and fulfill consumer preferences, while incentivizing preferred practices; creating an inviting and environmentally responsible public realm from parks to streets to forgotten spaces; and finally how to implement these ecodesign concepts.

Throughout the book, the ecodesign framework is demonstrated by innovative practices that are already underway or have been accomplished in many cities and suburbs—from Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm to False Creek North in Vancouver to Battery Park City in Manhattan, as well as many smaller-scale examples that can be adopted in any community.

Ecodesign thinking is relevant to anyone who has a part in shaping or influencing the future of cities and suburbs – designers, public officials, and politicians.

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Managing the Climate Crisis

Designing and Building for Floods, Heat, Drought, and Wildfire

Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw

Island Press, 2022

The climate, which had been relatively stable for centuries, is well into a new and dangerous phase. In 2020 there were 22 weather and climate disasters in the United States, which resulted in 262 deaths. Each disaster cost more than a billion dollars to repair. This dangerous trend is continuing with unprecedented heat waves, extended drought, extraordinary wildfire seasons, torrential downpours, and increased coastal and river flooding. Reducing the causes of the changing climate is the urgent global priority, but the country will be living with worsening climate disasters at least until midcentury because of greenhouse emissions already in the atmosphere. How to deal with the changing climate is an urgent national security problem affecting almost everyone.

In Managing the Climate Crisis, design and planning experts Jonathan Barnett and Matthijs Bouw take a practical approach to addressing the inevitable and growing threats from the climate crisis using constructed and nature-based design and engineering and ordinary government programs. They discuss adaptation and preventive measures and illustrate their implementation for seven climate-related threats: flooding along coastlines, river flooding, flash floods from extreme rain events, drought, wildfire, long periods of high heat, and food shortages.

The policies and investments needed to protect lives and property are affordable if they begin now, and are planned and budgeted over the next 30 years. Preventive actions can also be a tremendous opportunity, not only to create jobs, but also to remake cities and landscapes to be better for everyone. Flood defenses can be incorporated into new waterfront parks. The green designs needed to control flash floods can also help shield communities from excessive heat. Combating wildfires can produce healthier forests and generate creative designs for low-ignition landscapes and more fire-resistant buildings. Capturing rainwater can make cities respond to severe weather more naturally, while conserving farmland from erosion and encouraging roof-top greenhouses can safeguard food supplies.

Managing the Climate Crisis is a practical guide to managing the immediate threats from a changing climate while improving the way we live.

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Planning for a New Century

The Regional Agenda

Edited by Jonathan Barnett

Island Press, 2000

Across the United States, issues such as sustainability, smart growth, and livable communities are making headlines. Planning for a New Century brings together leading thinkers in the fields of planning, urban design, education, welfare, and housing to examine those issues and to consider the ways in which public policies have helped create—and can help solve—many of the problems facing our communities.

Each chapter identifies issues, provides background, and offers specific policy suggestions for federal, state, and local initiatives. Topics examined include:

the relation of existing growth management policies to social equity, as well as how regional growth management measures can make new development more sustainable
how an obscure technical procedure in highway design becomes a de facto regional plan
ways in which local governments can promote environmental preservation and better-designed communities by rewriting local zoning and subdivision ordinances
why alleviating housing shortages and slum conditions has resulted in a lack of affordable housing, and how that problem can be solved
how business improvement districts can make downtowns cleaner, safer, and more welcoming to workers and visitors

In addition, the book features chapters on public safety, education, and welfare reform that include proposals that will help make regional growth management easier as inner-city crime is reduced, schools are improved, and concentrations of extreme poverty are eliminated.

Planning for the New Century brings together current academic research with pressing public policy concerns, and will be a useful resource for policymakers at all levels of government, for planners and architects, and for students and scholars of urban planning and design, and urban studies.

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