BOOK REVIEWS

Christopher G. Boone and Ali Modarres, City and Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006). In City and Environment, Boone and Modarres seek to illuminate the social-ecological systems of cities as an academic exercise and search for pathways that can turn cities into ecologically sustainable places (p. xii). Although they succeed in summarizing six topics (urban spatial structure, population, agriculture, infrastructure, health, and green land use models) they do not push the boundaries of our knowledge regarding our understanding of cities as human-nature systems. Nor do they carry out a cutting-edge literature review on this topic. Those already familiar with the urban geographical and urban environmental literatures will probably not find many new things in this book. However, the authors have written a nonjargony repackaging of an interesting mix of historical evolution and current aspects of their chosen six issue areas, along with limited critiques of current approaches to alleviating urban environmental problems. They also provide a sprinkling of prescriptions for a more sustainable future. Regarding the authors second objectiveto identify pathways to more sustainable futures they only scratch the surface. The reader is not given enough guidance to weave the chapters into a framework for identifying these new pathways. The last four pages of the book provide six prescriptions for a sustainable future. Unfortunately, these prescriptions are not new and do not seem to be drawn from the previous 184 pages of narrative. They appear as an add on just to close the book. Despite this critique, the prescriptions do go beyond the typical environmental aspects ascribed to sustainability, reflecting the authors focus on social justice as a central theme. The book does not work well as a cohesive piece because the objectives and unifying elements of each of the six chapters are not clear. Fortunately, the chapters work well as stand-alone pieces. I suspect that this attribute will make the book attractive to a wider audience, as selected chapters of the book can be used for teaching in various fields. The strength of Chapter 1 is that it provides a concise and surprisingly rich urban history and a strong discussion of the evolution of urban form. Dominant in this review is the role of planning and urban management in shaping the city from the Greek city to the modern industrial one. This chapter also suggests varied theoretical bases for thinking about cities, the hydraulic civilization model, conflict theory, and the managerial model of city development. In addition, Chapter 1 provides an incisive attempt at understanding the role of nature in urban evolution through the perspective of humans reaction to the environment. Chapter 4, which focuses on urban infrastructure, interprets infrastructure as the network that sustains us. Boone and Modarres focus on roads, transit options, vehicle design, water use, water removal, and sewage. Chapters 2 and 5 focus on underrepresented topics in urban environmental discussions population and health. Chapter 2 concentrates on population issues and the link to resource consumption. The authors offer a broad sweep of global population trends, while pointing out resultant equity issues. India is used as an in-depth example. Chapter 5 addresses the healthy
JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Volume 32, Number 1, pages 131141. Copyright C 2010 Urban Affairs Association All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0735-2166.

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cities movement and its evolution from the earlier public health movement. After critiquing the personal health focus of much of the healthy cities movement, the authors identify the automobile as the key link between the environment and health (e.g., poor air quality, obesity, accidents). The discussions of sprawl, land use, and urban planning solutions found in Chapters 3 and 6 are elementary and are most suitable for introductory planning courses. Chapter 3 discusses sprawl from the point of view of loss of farmland, whereas Chapter 6 briefly introduces the subjects of garden cities, smart growth, and new urbanism. The most appealing aspect of this book is that it approaches the urban/nature nexus differently than the earlier literature. The anchor of the analysis is definitely the city. Boone and Modarres include in each of the six chapters selected historical aspects of the topic, such as a discussion of historical demography in the population chapter, and a redescription of the city and its linkages to nature. These linkages to nature are at times difficult to understand because the discussion of the city is much stronger than the discussion of the environment. Despite the above-mentioned weaknesses, students will find many parts of the book interesting and useful. The price of the paperback version makes it very affordable for classroom use. Carla Chifos University of Cincinnati carla.chifos@uc.edu

Eran Ben-Joseph, The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). Flying over the American drapery of nested grids and curvilinear subdivisions, one asks: How did we come to this and where is it going? The Code of the City does a valuable job in answering the first question. This little book provides a useful viewpoint on the hidden hand of standards and codes that shape our cities, with an emphasis on subdivision regulations. On the second question, the approach is normative. Seeking to go beyond the mud of conventional practices and codes, Ben-Joseph draws on the new interest in sustainable, whole environment thinking, examples of performance-based design, and on the utility of three-dimensional visual-simulation tools. Today it is hard to avoid Ben-Josephs subject. Recent high-impact wildfires in California indicate the need to rethink existing as well as new development planning. Drought conditions have focused intense public discussion on water supply and on the need to create more efficient development patterns. Hurricane Katrina and the specter of climate change-induced impacts on coastal environments, as well as demographic projections for another 100 million Americans by the mid-century keep the future of metropolitan America in high-definition public debate. As this book makes abundantly clear, achieving future success cannot be left to old practices nor should we aim to achieve unattainable goals. We need to incorporate meaningful standards as part of efforts to achieve new, innovative, and ecologically responsive approaches. The Code of the City is an urban design book with two audiences. First, Ben-Joseph provides excellent insights on codes and standards for practitioners and students of urban design and planning. Second, the book should also be of great interest to the general public, civic leaders, and the development community. Alas, the authors recommendations are not addressed to this broader audience; professionals are only a piece of the pie. Innovative, place-attuned change will

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come as more players, including the market, appreciate the barriers and costs created by our labyrinth of rules and obsolete approaches. Code lays down our metropolitan fabrics story through three aptly titled sections: The Rise of the Rule Book, Locked in Place, and Altering Inherited Traits. Each contains three engaging chapters including visual material. Places Nonstandard, an afterword, is Ben-Josephs call to arms. Reading this first vividly underscores his intentions and professional design values. Place making . . . has been crowded into a bureaucratic task of rule writing, standards formulation, and code enforcement (that) . . . rob the urban planning profession of its central goal: to foster democratic civic processes and outcomes whereby communities retain their local character, make the most of the existing conditions of the built and natural environment, and create developments that are sensitive and sensible to their immediate surroundings (p. 188). Scan the Afterword, then skim Places First for his recommendations, including these four. First, reinforce the idea that design matters. Ben-Joseph calls for increasing the level of design understanding in planning work and for a sharper capacity to convey the three-dimensional consequences of policies. Second, advance the role of the planner and designer in clarifying codes; dont leave it up to the lawyers, he cautions. Thirdly, incorporate visual materials, relate them to the particulars of the place, and bring design education to a wider range of planning interests. Ben-Joseph identifies strategies for using computing and other simulation tools to help the public to visualize the physical impacts of codes and regulations. Finally, establish best practice clearinghouses. The best catalysts for innovation are actual examples (p. 178). Envision Place Making Part I, The Rise of the Rule Book, traces the evolution of urban standards and regulations including an exciting but succinct history of rules from the Indus Valley to China and Japan, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, and Islamic cities. Ben-Joseph also reviews the origins of land surveying and civil engineering. He traces a path from the Roman rectilinear techniques to the evolution of Gunters chain (1616)an iPod-like shift in land measuring devices that enabled a new precision in subdivisionthe lotthat furthered the commodification of land without regard to local geographic differences. His abbreviated but thick review of U.S. zoning history spotlights the early emphasis on scientific and efficient approaches for controlling municipal development. For the broadest audience, Part I provides the most value. Part II, Locked in Place, looks at how standards have become unquestioned urban conventions, severely limiting alternatives and shaping expectations of both the public and private sectors. Ben-Joseph unfolds the decisions leading to our water-demanding engineering for sewage removal and treatment. Regulating Developers draws on his recent Lincoln Institute study to explore the design impacts of standards and regulations on residential developments. Part II is an Oreo cookie that compares present, conventional practices and standards with examples of emerging potentials for shaping places. In between is an analytical layer for exploring how performance trumps standards. These lines of inquiry are illuminating but too brief to provide a strong, comprehensive platform for taking action. In Part III, Altering Inherited Traits, Ben-Joseph describes a shift in the regulatory paradigm coming from new forces, including growing environmental awareness and new partnerships between public and private sectors to address sustainability. He examines the recent history of private residential communities for guidance systems that are often more ecologically sensitive, energy efficient, or mobility-attuned. Ben-Joseph also reviews promising tools for making the spatial consequences of development proposals understandable, and for helping to shift the present codes and standards-driven paradigm from prescription and prevention to exploration and options generation. Place making and the potentialities of the future are two subjects of widespread appeal and interest. Ben-Joseph captures both in his compact, lively book to give practitioners as well as

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the general reader the courage of perspective and ideas to address the formidable challenges of shaping an ecologically relevant and regenerative metropolitan America. The academic audience should appreciate the opening of this inquiry but will have to overlook the costs of compactness in this work. Students will find it a handy pathway into the subject with adequate notes and references. Civic leaders, the press and the not-for-profit sector devoted to urban land policies and practices should value the books insights as well as the questions it raises and the promise the author sees ahead. Dennis M. Ryan University of Washington frango@u.washington.edu

Judith Rodin, The University and Urban Revival: Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Between 1994 and 2004, Judith Rodin served as the ninth president of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. This book describes a significant, perhaps defining, element of her tenurethe inauguration and development of a revitalization effort meant to transform the west side communities bordering the university. The effort, argues Rodin, was more than the traditional universitycommunity relations program. For urban revitalization to be successful in the area around Penn, the university was required to shift its perspective and development aspirations, linking all of its campus planning to its neighborhood-redevelopment strategies. As such, she would ultimately decide that no land acquisition was (to be) made, no renovation undertaken, and no new building begun, without asking how it would affect the neighborhood and the city (p. 187). To suggest that this represented, in the early 1990s, something of a new perspective for urban universities in generalto say nothing of the elite, private research universities such as Pennis something of an understatement. Rodin reports that such a change of perspective was institution-transformingrequiring a full reconsideration of the universitys strategic and master planning purpose and a reinvigoration of the philosophy of the academy. The result was a mission that recognized and built upon the role of the university as a foundational or anchor institution of the city of Philadelphia. When evaluating a book, there is certainly no substitute for content and this book is rich in content. But frankly, timing is also important. While The University and Urban Renewal: Out of the Ivory Tower and into the Streets gives a full case study of the ways in which Penn came to grips with its urban mission, it is the timeliness of the book that makes it a real contribution on several fronts. Rodins book adds a new layer to that small and important body of scholarship written by university presidents on the role of the academy in contemporary society. Notable among more recent studies are the work of past Cornell president Frank Rhodes (2001) and former Harvard president Derek Bok (2003). However, where Rhodes suggests a return to the civic mission as a fundamental part of the academic purpose of academy and Bok challenges notions of entrepreurship that might well be the sources of the dilution of academic mission in the academy, Rodin takes an importantly different tackproviding a careful consideration of the universitys role in the city. Hers is the first book-length monograph by a university leader to describe, in detail and over time, the institutional role of the university in the modern U.S. city. The book is also an important

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contribution to the more extensive literature on universitycommunity relations represented by such recent studies as the survey report by Dubb and Howard (2007) and Maurrasses (2001) comparative case assessment of universitycommunity relations. Rodins study is unique in this literature for two reasons: first, for its detailhers is a case study of a process that emerged over the course of a decadeand, second, for its perspectiveit is written through the eyes and experiences of the person who led the efforts the book seeks to analyze. The University and Urban Renewal also contributes to a more nascent study of urban planning and developmentthe increasingly important role of fully vested (Perry & Wiewel, 2005; Wiewel & Perry, 2008) or anchor institutions (Birch & Wachter, 2007) in urban development. The book is organized into three sections: (1) a well ordered and contextual three-chapter introduction to Rodins description of the Penn case; (2) a well researched, five-chapter case study of the strategic and comprehensive approach Penn used to engage its immediate community and the city of Philadelphia; and (3) two summary chapters on civic leadership and lessons learned. Rodin begins with a general assessment of the parallel tracks of continuous deterioration of relations between universities and their communities and of many of the conditions of the neighboring communities themselves. She also reviews the changing role of universitiesmoving from enclaves to more fully engaged urban institutionssetting the stage for a case analysis and argument, near the end of the book, for the role of universities and their personages in civic leadership. She embeds these somewhat contradictory patterns of deterioration and de facto institutional importance of the university in the complex conditions of growth of the University City area of the Philadelphia. These conflictual, often contested patterns of change were tragically underscored by the murder of two members of the Penn academic community in the first two years of Rodins presidency. The families of the victims pushed Rodin to act. Whether she was initially interested or not, Rodin found herself reassessing the interests of the university, its staff, and students, and the ways that they were dramatically tied to the interests of the communityfrom safety to future physical development. The middle part of the book discusses Penns active approach to such a community-based reassessment. Rodin describes the mobilization of the collective interests of the university and the city as a product of synergistic intervention and good communications and partnership (p. 18). Partnership is key herecollaborative, reciprocal relations that give some level of parity to the community and university in their respective roles in the city. Such reciprocity has to be more than rhetorical; there has to be, in Rodins terms, commitment and skin in the game, that is, real resources applied to real issues. In short, Penns urban revival had to be played for real stakesgoods had to be negotiated, invested in, and producedin a reciprocal and partnered way. Chapters 4 to 8 tell the story of the processes that were carried out to meet such real issues and the institutional and community relations such processes required. For Rodin such relations required leadership, embodied in some form of an identifiable entity (Penn) that showed the commitment and resources to ensure credibility and clout to lead, to leverage . . . multiple resources most effectively. But leadership would need to be gentle, she suggeststo overcome the decades of mistrust built up in the city and the communities over the role and motives of the university. The book outlines this gentleness in terms of the long-term patient evolution of deliberation and rationale for planning and structures to implement the plans for community change and renewal. These plans and structures comprised the West Philadelphia Initiatives (WPI) and each of the five WPI goals are the topics of the middle chapters of the book: (1) improve neighborhood safety, services, and capacities; (2) provide high-quality, diverse housing choices; (3) revive commercial activity; (4) accelerate economic development; and (5) enhance local public school options. These chapters are well-organized, articulating at once the importance of the issues to urbanism and the institutional role of the university in addressing them. If there is one concern here, it

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is that they are university heavy in their description and case analysiswith less full and understandable treatment of the issues from community and city perspectives. The book concludes with two chaptersone on the topic of civic leadership and the other on conclusions or lessons learned. For Rodin, the challenge, indeed the obligation of the university and its leaders, is to develop a fully engaged institutional relationship with the city. This engagement with the urban is the stuff of what Rodin, among others, calls civic leadership. While the structures of such leadership can be new nonprofit entities, the sophistication and complexity of urban political economy today in cities like Philadelphia led Penn to adopt an approach built upon new networks of existing entities in the university, the city, and the community, such that individual efforts could be collectively mobilized, owned, and adapted to new relational initiatives. The resulting leadership for Penn in the past decade has taken on many multifaceted, collaborative forms of civic engagement: from expanding its connections with community organizations, to emerging as one of the member leaders in the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, to proactively engaging in the Pennsylvania Knowledge Industry Partnership, and to acquiring and developing land on its eastern border that will link the universitys real estate holdings and development activities to Center City Philadelphia. The final part of the book lists and briefly describes the lessons Penn has learned about its relations and role in the city. These lessons are more about process and institutional behavior than they are about particular issues or urban topics. Rodin sums up her book with the conclusion that the university in its relations with the city must be strategic and well-organized so that such relations are well embedded in the mission and tasks of the university. These relations are best characterized by holistic interactions that are long-term and trustful. In the end Rodin suggests that both university and community must be patient, because they are both in it for the long haul and there will be setbacks. Overall, the book provides a useful chronicle of the institutional purpose and role of the university in the city. It is not without its limitations. First, for all the purposive rhetoric and programmatic execution Rodin describes, Penn, like most institutions of higher education, did not come to this reconceptualization of its institutional and developmental role in Philadelphia easilyit took community protests and the ongoing decline of the surrounding West Philadelphia community on the one hand and the tragic murder of a student with close family ties to Judith Rodin on the other to ultimately shake the campus from its enclave mentality. The outcome is a case of an institution shifting to accommodate its own interests with those of the community. The book is less directly a critical institutional assessment of such developmental interests and more a de facto account of the ways in which institutions change. Second, given that the book is a report on the 10-year tenure of Rodin, there is an understandable presidentially boosterish gloss that only comes from having been a passionate part of the process. At the same time, having been there and actually carried out such important changes in the way Penn operates helped Rodin understand the details of the process in a way that would otherwise not be possible. Finally, the conclusions, or lessons offered in the last chapter are not necessarily newthey reinforce the conclusions of other studies already cited here. But these are small points, understandable limitations more than criticisms. The University and Urban Revival is an excellent book. It makes for instructive reading not only for university presidents, but also for city leaders who seek to engage their anchor institutions in urban change and city planners and policy makers who will help produce the tools of such engagement. REFERENCES
Birch, E., & Wachter, S. (2007, October). Urban anchors in the 21st century: A commitment to place, growth and community. Paper presented at a conference of the Penn Institute for Urban Research, Philadelphia.

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Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the marketplace: The commercialization of higher education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dubb, S., & Howard, T. (2007). Linking colleges to communities: Engaging the university for community development. College Park, MD: The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland. Maurrasse, D. (2001). Beyond the campus: How colleges and universities form partnerships with their communities. New York: Routledge. Perry, D.C., & Wiewel, W. (Eds.) (2005). The university as urban developer: Case studies and analysis. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Rhodes, F. (2001). The creation of the future: The role of the American university. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wiewel, W., & Perry, D.C. (Eds.) (2008). The global university and urban development: Case studies and analysis. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

David C. Perry University of Illinois-Chicago dperry@uic.edu

H.V. Savitch, Cities in a Time of Terror: Space, Territory, and Local Resilience (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2007). 9/11 changed everything is the catchphrase often heard to explain the many shifts in public policy, erratic swings of the economy, and a general sense of national insecurity felt across the world since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. H.V. Savitchs Cities in a Time of Terror, in the context of his exhaustive writings on the urban landscape, illustrates how the more 9/11 has changed things, the more they have remained the same. The economies of scale achieved by the density of cities, in Savitchs analysis, also make them the most profitable strategic target for terrorists. But ultimately this density of economic and cultural activity also allows for a fairly certain, if at times slow, recovery from attacks. Savitch examines the central business districts and transit systems of the first cities of the world which have been the targets of terrorists. New York, Madrid, London, and Jerusalem are viewed in hard focus. Economic statistics and casualty rates demonstrate urban resilience in the face of terrorism, specifically in the commercial and entertainment corridors of the primary cities of these nations. Savitch contends that cities have found ways to bounce back from terrorist attacks, and, through measured responses, reclaim their pre-attack vitality. The book also documents how cities often implement measures, which are intended to detect potential terrorist behaviors and deter attacks, with the unintended consequence of making the city center environment hostile to visitors. These responses are not new, although they have been heightened by the perceived threat of attacks on American cities. Prior to 9/11, most downtown boosters sought to maximize pedestrian retail and tourist traffic while minimizing visitors encounters with the homeless, as well as providing a smooth commute for suburban and exurban workers which minimized the perceived downsides of public transportation. These conflicting goals have made for policy choices with an aim to create virtual green zones within the often economically stagnant downtown cores

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of many U.S. cities. Savitch details with pictures and graphic language how public areas near supposed high-value targets have been turned into shriveled, prickly, and hostile spaces. For example, so-called Jersey Barrier fortifications against anticipated car bombs discourage individuals from entering government properties or loitering in the public spaces of commercial districts. Mundane problems such as vagrancy are dealt with by removing benches and closing public restrooms. Government buildings across the United States have shrunk their public spaces. In response to the Oklahoma City bombing, the new Federal Courthouse in Minneapolis employs numerous prickly measures to slow vehicle intrusion and discourage even noontime lunching by downtown workers. Jerusalem continually restitches its urban fabric after nearly perpetual low-level attacks. New York has survived one spectacular blitz, confounding the American medias sustained hysteria over credible but nonspecific threats of domestic terror events. In the United States, this is doubly surprising, considering an accelerated trend toward less-inviting downtowns. But that trend was well under way even prior to the first attack on the World Trade Center, driven by commercial elites seeking to control urban development. As Savitch puts it,
These protections are meant to control, investigate, and possibly apprehend those who would harm the city and its people. They are also intended to reduce the visibility and exposure of potential targets. Nonetheless . . . they have shrunk the urban space and their paradoxical effect is to drain the city of the very vibrancy they are supposed to safeguard. (p. 139)

Savitch expanded on this paradox in Post-Industrial Cities: Politics and Planning in New York, Paris, and London (1988). There we read of developers dodging the spirit of zoning rules to mitigate the invasion of the undesirable public:
Developers left spaces that were inhospitable or uncongenial to the public while they took advantage of additional heights . . .. In some cases developers even placed metal spikes on concrete railings that marked their plazas, in order to prevent outsiders from sitting on them. (pp. 5051)

It is indeed a paradox that tourism should rebound after terrorist attacks, yet tourists do not have to live with the day-to-day inconveniences that these measures impose on residents and workers. Out-of-towners might not notice these measures when in transit from hotel to entertainment. Perhaps the local citizens have adapted to the measures and have resigned themselves to the phenomena? With 9/11, Savitch contends, elected leaders across the political spectrum began to turn discussions of terrorism to their advantage: Terrorism is the perfect symbol to manipulate because it is subject to glaringly simple slogans. Politicians may make the most of peoples anxiety, sometimes exploiting the citizens impulse to surrender reasoned judgment to zealous reaction (p. 61). These political responses did not end with the debate about stateless terrorism and intercepting hostile actors at the border. Savitch also delves into terrorism in the context of pork barrel politics with his analysis of UASI (Urban Areas Security Initiative) funding and the exponentially increased costs for insurance and security in commercial property development, particularly in the nations downtowns. Addressing the mounting costs of a countrys response to anticipated future terrorism is all too rare in the press. Savitch provides a welcome start to that discussion here. Following the money allocated by UASI to the top thirty American cities in terms of dollars allocated and per capita funding, we find that Omaha, Nebraska received almost as

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much per capita as New York City and nearly twice as much as Chicago. Oklahoma City and metropolitan Minneapolis-St. Paulsuccessful target for domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh and unsuccessful training ground for al Qaedas Zacarias Moussaoui respectivelydo not even crack the top thirty. And the demonstrable resiliency of most U.S. cities in a war-strained economy raises the basic question: Apart from funding for recovery, is the shift from federal support for infrastructure and social programs to the war on terror a wise investment? In my informal surveys at several national crime conferences, I have found that the private sector has not followed suit: the job creation of NSA airport screeners notwithstanding (only peripheral in the security picture for central business districts), plans for extra security personnel, and advanced security technology for commercial districts, dreamed up in the aftermath of 9/11, have largely been left unfulfilled. Unexplored terrain includes the phenomena of dish cities, refugee enclaves within the central cities of Europe and the United States: are these neighborhoods hotbeds for future terrorists, or simply the last stop for the huddled masses who fled and abhor the terror that was fomenting in their homelands? Do the dishesthe satellite television services which keep these new arrivals connected to their homelandsmake for a growing population of religious or political malcontents? Or do they ease the transition to a western culture of religious indifference and political tolerance? But these and other related topics are left between the lines in Cities in a Time of Terror; answers would require another book entirely. I for one would welcome a sequel on exactly these topics from Savitch. Savitchs writing will appeal to graduate students and serious undergrads. His aim is clearly stated and he avoids the excessive nested references to others opinions all too common in such well-researched work. The material is a good fit for urban studies and the increasing number of degree programs which focus on homeland security and vulnerability assessment. Law enforcement managers will find the book very helpful when discussing the public safety ramifications of commercial project designs with elected officials and planners. With the evenhanded analysis of Cities in a Time of Terror, the nations future urban planners can avoid the pitfalls of political brinksmanship and focus on objective, positive steps to keep city centers vital as well as safe. Luther Krueger Minneapolis Police Department luther.krueger@ci.minneapolis.mn.us

Rob Kruger and David Gibbs (Eds.), The Sustainable Development Paradox: Urban Political Economy in the United States and Europe (New York and London: The Guilford Press, 2007). Sustainability has been discussed in environmental circles for more than 20 years. However, the challenge for researchers and practitioners has been to reach a consensus on a definition that encompasses everything sustainability touches. The Sustainable Development Paradox, edited by Rob Kruger and David Gibbs, helps us to develop such a unified definition. Rob Kruger and David Gibbs have provided us with a collection of articles that discuss the politics of sustainability, the challenges inherent in attempting to define sustainability satisfactorily, and the gap between

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sustainability theory and practice. This collection of writings from scholars in geography, history, and planning shares a common focus on sustainability, but from very distinct perspectives. Throughout the book, sustainability is defined according to the Brundtland Commission Report, Our Common Future, which states that sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED 1987, p. 24). This definition recognizes that there are fundamental and inextricable linkages among economic, social, and environmental factors. The introduction by Kruger and Gibbs provides an overview of approaches to sustainability local versus regional, capitalist versus socialist. The remainder of the book is divided into three parts: Chapters 1 to 3 argue that in order to attain true sustainability, we must question everything including current social, economic, and political frameworks; Chapters 4 to 8 discuss the link between politics and sustainability on a local and regional scale; and Chapters 9 and 10 provide an overview of conservation planning and resource use as they relate to spatial and regional politics. In Chapter 1, Erik Swyngedouw suggests that sustainability is a construct created by the capitalist system to avoid discussions about changing the systems and arrangements of everyday life (p. 19). In Chapter 2, Roger Keil continues along the same line of discussion, arguing that the science and politics of sustainability cannot be separated. He suggests that sustainability can only be achieved at the expense of capitalism as we know it (p. 57), and proposes the introduction of a use-value orientation, the Marxian concept of charging a price for a good that is commensurate with its value to users as opposed to the cost of production. Susan Buckinghams Chapter 3 continues the discussion of politics and policy and turns it, somewhat incongruously in the context of the other chapters, to gender equity, suggesting that in order to create more sustainable places microruptures within existing policies must be created in order to address gender inequities in the environmental movement. Editors David Gibbs and Rob Kruger (Chapter 4) discuss the practical policy connections between sustainability and the new economy. The authors found that many cities, including the case study cities of Austin and Boston, have adopted sustainable development strategies in order to be more appealing to new economy employers and employees. This appeal includes restoring or retaining the historic, natural, aesthetic, and cultural amenities that are appealing to lifestylebased new economy businesses, suggesting both economic development and complementary quality-of-life components to sustainability. In Chapter 5, Andrew E. G. Jones and Aidan While shift the discussion of urban sustainability to Barcelona, Spain where the new urban politics is as much about sustainability as it is about urban competition (p. 129). As the postindustrial city searches for its place in the new economy, residents are concerned about the displacement of the poor; in other words, whether the pursuit of economic and environmental sustainability occurs at the expense of social sustainability. In Chapter 6, Marc Par s and David Saur address the social and political aspects of sustainability. e They suggest that socially sustainable urban public spaces, like public parks, encourages political sustainability by providing a forum for the citizenry to come together, discuss their city, and reach a consensus about solutions to the ills of the city. Anna Batchelor and Alan Patterson (Chapter 7) link the weakening of sustainability policy in Britain to the rise of the New Labour party and neoliberalism (i.e., a philosophy valuing the control of the economy by the private sector). The authors argue that though the rhetoric of sustainable development dominates current British policy, the structure of the government and its policies are weighted toward the implementation of neoliberal economic development policies. Chapter 8 by Mike Raco further explains how New Labour has weakened sustainability policies in Britain by handing down sustainable planning directives from the national government without providing the resources to implement them. As a result, local and regional planning practitioners have had to exercise creativity when attempting to fulfill expectations with limited funds.

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Spatial politics and resource conservation are addressed in the last two chapters of the book. I found James P. Evans comprehensive overview of the theory, policy, and practice of conservation planning (Chapter 9) useful because I had not previously been exposed to this literature. Evan discusses the importance of the scale of conservation, and highlights the need to address smaller scale urban habitats as well as larger natural or wilderness areas. He states that some of the most successful conservation initiatives in highly modified landscapes occur at the scale of the individual building or development (p. 258), which is a useful perspective for those who work in primarily urban environments. Stephanie Pincetl and Basil Katzs final chapter (Chapter 10) focuses on the spatial politics of agricultural water distribution in the Imperial Valley of California. The policies in place in the Imperial Valley today are the result of a long and fragmented history of water rights and deliveries, and the authors argue for a better understanding of the interconnectivity of federal, state, and local policies that are utilized in many regions to distribute their resources. Because the first set of chapters is highly abstract and ideological it is not very useful for planners or other practitioners. Chapters 1 and 2 posit that capitalism is a large part of the problem and that without a complete reworking of the current capitalist system sustainability is unattainable. However, this conclusion is somewhat suspect as many socialist countries, such as China, battle with sustainability as desperately as capitalist ones. Later chapters on connections between policy and sustainability are, on the other hand, very helpful and applicable. Overall, the book provides a broad overview of the politics of sustainability, and would be useful and interesting for academics and theorists more than practicing planners or graduate students. Given the large number of books discussing sustainability, this might not be the best choice for a reader looking to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Li Alligood University of Cincinnati lialligood@gmail.com

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