The sustainability challenges of yesterday have become today's resilience crises. National and global efforts have failed to stop climate change, transition from fossil fuels, and reduce inequality. We must now confront these and other increasingly complex problems by building resilience at the community level. But what does that mean in practice, and how can it be done in a way that's effective and equitable? The Community Resilience Reader offers a new vision for creating resilience, through essays by leaders in such varied fields as science, policy, community building, and urban design.
The sustainability challenges of yesterday have become today's resilience crises. National and global efforts have failed to stop climate change, transition from fossil fuels, and reduce inequality. We must now confront these and other increasingly complex problems by building resilience at the community level. But what does that mean in practice, and how can it be done in a way that's effective and equitable? The Community Resilience Reader offers a new vision for creating resilience, through essays by leaders in such varied fields as science, policy, community building, and urban design.
Daniel Lerch is Publications Director of Post Carbon Institute, serving as lead editor and manager of the Institute's books and reports. He is the author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty (2007)--the first major local government guidebook on the end of cheap oil--and was the founding chair of the Sustainable Communities Division of the American Planning Association and a founding co-director of The City Repair Project. Lerch has delivered over 100 presentations to audiences across the United States and abroad, and has been interviewed for numerous media outlets. He has worked with urban sustainability issues for over twenty years in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.
"The Community Resilience Reader has not come a minute too soon.
This is essential reading for college classes, local planning
boards, conservation commissions, community activists, resilience
study groups and anyone shaken by the environmental, energy,
economic and equity crises now confronting humankind. Readers
looking for ways to navigate the troubled waters ahead will find
innovative, thoughtful, and wise guidance throughout these pages.
This book reflects the paradigm shift so desperately needed from a
system of unsustainable growth to one of resilience and
reintegration with the natural world. Everything that needs to be
done is doable--but only if humankind digs in to do the hard work
ahead. The Community Resilience Reader serves as a much needed
guidepost."--Nancy Lee Wood, Director of the Institute for
Sustainability and Post-Carbon Education, Bristol Community College
(Mass.)
"Daniel Lerch and the team at the Post Carbon Institute have done
it again. This collection of authors digs deeply into the topics of
global carrying capacity, economics, community, ecology, energy,
and other resilience-related themes. Building on the success of the
2010 Post Carbon Reader and other publications produced by the Post
Carbon Institute, this new book is a resource I will use in some of
my advanced undergraduate courses. I will also recommend it to
local decision makers who are trying to find ways to guide their
own communities forward in a positive direction. Each chapter is
nutrient dense and leads the reader to think deeply about our
current operating procedures on planet earth and the need for
profound change."--Steve Whitman, Adjunct Faculty in Community
Planning and Sustainability, Plymouth State University and Colby
Sawyer College
"The Post Carbon Institute does not disappoint with The Community
Resilience Reader. The book offers a wealth of ideas and examples
for building community resilience in all aspects of society. Post
Carbon Institute offers views that may be considered radical to
many--but that's their approach, and I love it. I wholeheartedly
believe my undergraduate students will greatly benefit from The
Community Resilience Reader as I have."--Ann Scheerer, Academic
Adviser, Sustainability Double Degree Program, Oregon State
University
"Inspirational, aspirational, and grounded enough to be practical,
The Community Resilience Reader: Essential Resources for an Era of
Upheaval, edited by Daniel Lerch, is a useful text for planners who
wish to strive for sustainability...For those planners who entered
the profession to change the world, this book might reignite that
passion. For students who are just discovering planning, this book
might give hope that making the world a better place is still
within our grasp."-- "Journal of the American Planning
Association"
"A collection of works by a diverse stable of authors that seeks to
illuminate the concept of resilience...The Community Resilience
Reader is a valuable resource for thinking in a new way about
almost every aspect of our communities." -- "Civil Engineering"
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