The Very Hungry City Urban Energy Efficiency and the Economic Fate of Cities

The Very Hungry City: Urban Energy Efficiency and the Economic Fate of Cities by Austin Troy (Author). As international demand for energy grows and prices rise, a city’s energy consumption turns into increasingly tied to its financial viability, warns the writer of The Very Hungry City. Austin Troy, a seasoned professional in urban environmental administration, explains to common readers how a metropolis with an excessive “urban vitality metabolism”-that’s, a city that needs large amounts of vitality so as to function-can be at a competitive drawback within the future. He explores why cities have totally different power metabolisms and discusses an array of modern approaches to the problems of costly energy consumption.

Troy appears to be like at dozens of cities and suburbs in Europe and the United States-from Los Angeles to Copenhagen, Denver to the Swedish urban redevelopment venture Hammarby Sjöstad-to understand the various components that affect their power use: behavior, local weather, water supply, constructing quality, transportation, and others.

He then assesses a number of the most imaginative solutions that cities have proposed, among them green constructing, power-efficient neighborhoods, symbiotic infrastructure, congestion pricing, transit-oriented development, and water conservation. To conclude, the author addresses planning and policy approaches that can bring about change and transform the perfect ideas into real solutions.

Very Hungry City is an excellent account of the inter-relationship between city areas and vitality, and it explains the key points that decide the power utilization of a metropolis–its form, modes of transportation, infrastructure, local weather, etc. In doing so, Very Hungry Metropolis supplies an interesting (and entertaining) evaluation of the potential effectiveness of many of the tools that are at present used (or proposed) to reduce urban energy consumption and to enhance quality of life in cities. The creator’s evaluation is evident and his conclusions are straightforward and thoughtful. The conclusions of Very Hungry Metropolis portray an energy picture that is more sophisticated and nuanced than sometimes discovered within the mainstream media. This attribute of Very Hungry City units it aside from much of the information (including other books) on environmental points and makes it a precious read for those keen on environmental points and for the government officials and policymakers at the moment deciding how finest to speculate the super quantity of resources directed towards climate change, air pollution, urban congestion, etc.

The Very Hungry City: Urban Energy Efficiency and the Economic Fate of Cities

Austin Troy (Author)

384 pages

Yale University Press (January 10, 2012)

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