Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary

by Samuel Alexander and Brendan Gleeson

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This book addresses a central dilemma of the urban age: how to make the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis.  The authors argue that degrowth, a planned contraction of economic overshoot, is the only feasible principle for suburban renewal. They depart from the anti-suburban sentiment of much environmentalism to show that existing suburbia can be the centre-ground of transition to a new social dispensation based on the principle of self-limitation. The book offers a radical new urban imaginary, that of degrowth suburbia, which can arise Phoenix like from the increasingly stressed cities of the affluent Global North and guide urbanisation in a world at risk. This means dispensing with much contemporary green thinking, including blind faith in electric vehicles and high-density urbanism, and accepting the inevitability and the benefits of planned energy descent. A radical but necessary vision for the times.
  • ISBN13 9789811347368
  • Publish Date 29 December 2018 (first published 11 October 2018)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country SG
  • Imprint Springer Verlag, Singapore
  • Edition Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2019
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 213
  • Language English