Context to the book
How the book came about, and its ethos
The author has a lifelong connection with urban environments, in a personal and professional capacity, having lived in a number of cities and towns around the world and visited many others. For several years he has been reviewing how different urban environments function - what makes great ones great, why some struggle with the basics and why many are in the middle. After a period of detailed research, he started to write the book in April 2020, finalising the draft in 2023.
The ethos of the book is that we need to be positive about the future, because we can make positive change happen when we work towards a shared vision and objectives. The urban system described in this website provides the book's method of integrating and connecting many aspects and elements together.
Research into a variety of aspects that constitute the fabric of urban environments has been gathered from a wide range of sources, including holding interviews with people, reviewing books, academic papers and research articles, newspaper articles and attending city/urban events in person and online. The advice of many citizens, small business owners and people working in large corporations, specific experts, urban practitioners including those in municipal authorities, and academics has been very gratefully received to help develop concepts and ideas. The author has travelled to many different cities and towns in different geographies to observe first-hand their local context and to discuss with local experts and observers how well the urban system in these places works together with strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
The book’s coverage is global, with reviews of, and learning points from, cities and towns of various sizes around the world, in developed and developing economies. It looks at how to improve ecology in cities and towns; how to revamp and refresh our built environment including infrastructure; how to ensure strong social bonds and good economic performance; how to ensure good urban resilience, including against disaster threats; and how to ensure governance is effective to support everything, with a mindset to keep improving.
Measuring the effectiveness of actions to improve urban areas is a theme running through the book. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are stitched into the book's entirety, and a working proposal to potentially use a subset of Urban Indicators to measure development needs and progress is put forward.
How the book can be used
The book reviews how people in different roles in the urban context – including urban planners, urban economists, policy makers, business people, financiers, academics, community leaders, non-governmental organisations, and citizens – can work together to improve the urban areas they are focusing on.
It can be dipped into or read in depth, depending on your need and what you want to use the book for. It can be used in different ways - depending on whether you want to focus on aspects that cut across the urban system such as climate change, to review specific sections such as transport or how we consume goods and services, or digesting it from start to finish.
For example:
1) You have a particular role that focuses on how the private sector can support urban areas
Look at examples throughout the book of private sector engagement to improve urban environments. Review examples of actions to take, SDG targets and learning points that relate to business engagement, linked to the urban system.
2) You want to look at a specific urban aspect, such as making your city / town greener
Look across the book at considerations and examples of improving the ecology of urban environments with green and blue (with grey) infrastructure:
1. Review in particular the two sections on ecology.
And/or
2. Perform a word search across the book (reading in electronic format) to find aspects and examples that are threaded across various sections on green and blue improvements and infrastructure.
3) You want to learn from cities and towns around the world
Look at learning points from cities and towns throughout the book (e.g. by type or relevance).