Urban And Environmental Economics

The importance of the built environment to environmental protection is well established, with strict environmental regulations now a feature of the working lives of planners, contractors, building designers, and quantity surveyors alike. Those new to, or preparing to join this industry must have an understanding of how their environmental responsibilities relate to their professional responsibilities in economic terms. Designed as an introductory textbook, Urban and Environmental Economics: An Introduction provides the background information from these disciplines to understand crucial tools and economic techniques. A broad range of theories of the natural and built environments and economics are explained, helping the reader develop a real understanding of the topics that influence this subject, such as: the history of economic thought on the built environment the economics of shared space in the built environment cost-benefit analysis and discounting macro-economic tools, measures, and policy sustainable development resource valuation. Illustrated throughout, and with lists of further reading in every chapter, this book is ideal for students at all levels who need to get to grips with the economics of the environment within a built environment context. Particularly useful to those studying planning, land economy, environmental management, or housing development.

This book discusses the current demographic shifts of blacks, Latinos, and other people of colour out of certain strong-market cities and the growing fear of displacement among low-income urban residents. It documents these populations’ efforts to remain in their communities and highlights how this leads to community organizing around economic, environmental, and social justice. The book shows how residents of once-neglected urban communities are standing up to city economic development agencies, influential real estate developers, universities, and others to remain in their neighbourhoods, protect their interests, and transform their communities into sustainable, healthy communities. These communities are deploying new strategies that build off of past struggles over urban renewal. Based on seven years of research, this book draws on a wealth of material to conduct a case study analysis of eight low-income/mixed-income communities in Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. This timely book is aimed at researchers and postgraduate students interested in urban policy and politics, community development, urban studies, environmental justice, urban public health, sociology, community-based research methods, and urban planning theory and practice. It will also be of interest to policy makers, community activists, and the private sector.

Environmental Economics explores the ways in which economic theory and its applications, as practised and taught today, must be modified to explicitly accommodate the goal of sustainability and the vital role played by environmental capital. Pivoting around the first and second laws of thermodynamics, as well as the principles of ecological resilience, this book is divided into five key parts, which includes extensive coverage of environmental microeconomics and macroeconomics. It drills down into issues and challenges including consumer demand; production and supply; market organisation; renewable and non-renewable resources; environmental valuation; macroeconomic stabilisation, and international trade and globalisation. Drawing on case studies from forestry, water, soil, air quality, and mining, this book will equip readers with skills that enable the analyses of environmental and economic policy issues with a specific focus on the sustainability of the economy. Rich in pedagogical features, including key concepts boxes and review questions at the end of each chapter, this book will be a vital resource for upperlevel undergraduate and postgraduate students studying not only environmental economics/ecological economics but also economics in general.

For the first time at the beginning of the twenty-first century, urban dwellers outnumber rural residents and this trend is set to continue. Consequently one of the most pressing issues of our time is how to square the social and economic development of cities with their environmental limits and those of the wider environment. The theme of the environment and city is topical at every level, from the politics of global trade to local community networks. Environment and the City looks at the evolution of cities in the developed and the developing world and the implications for resource consumption and environmental impacts. It takes a cross-cutting approach with new thinking on multiple geographies – the configuration of networks, exclusion, consumption, risk and ecological footprint. Urban environmental themes and their related social, economic and political agendas are outlined. In turn the environmental impacts and environmental agendas relating to key sectors of the urban economy are discussed. The global context to such issues is then explored before the practical tools and methods of urban environmental management are investigated. The theme of the sustainable city emerges from this – not so much as a standard menu, but as a learning process between all sections of society. This book, a valuable resource, provides a concise, accessible route map for all students interested in the environmental issues emanating from our urban society. Written to aid student understanding, the easily navigable text features boxed practical examples, discussion points, signposts to reading and websites, and a glossary.

Sustainable development remains a significant issue in a globalized world requiring new economic standards and practices for the betterment of the environment as well as the world economy. However, sustainable economics must manage environmental solutions to issues on multiple levels and within various disciplines. There is a need for studies that seek to understand how environmental economics and governance within small and large sectors affect the capability and wellbeing of the global economy. Advanced Integrated Approaches to Environmental Economics and Policy: Emerging Research and Opportunities is an essential publication that focuses on the strategic role of environmental issues within the global economy. While highlighting topics such as complementary currency, reusable waste, and urban planning, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, environmental lawyers, economists, sociologists, politicians, academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on increasing an organization’s sustainable performance at both public and private levels.

Neoclassical economics, the intellectual bedrock of modern capitalism, faces growing criticisms, as many of its key assumptions and policy prescriptions are systematically challenged. Yet, there remains one field of economics where these limitations continue virtually unchallenged: the study of cities and regions in built-environment economics. In this book, Franklin Obeng-Odoom draws on institutional, Georgist and Marxist economics to clearly but comprehensively show what the key issues are today in thinking about urban economics. In doing so, he demonstrates the widespread tensions and contradictions in the status quo, showing how to reconstruct urban economics in order to create a more just society and environment.

This volume embodies a problem-driven and theoretically informed approach to bridging frontier research in urban economics and urban/regional planning. The authors focus on the interface between these two subdisciplines that have historically had an uneasy relationship. Although economists were among the early contributors to the literature on urban planning, many economists have been dismissive of a discipline whose leading scholars frequently favor regulations over market institutions, equity over efficiency, and normative prescriptions over positive analysis. Planners, meanwhile, even as they draw upon economic principles, often view the work of economists as abstract, not sensitive to institutional contexts, and communicated in a formal language spoken by few with decision making authority. Not surprisingly, papers in the leading economic journals rarely cite clearly pertinent papers in planning journals, and vice versa. Despite the historical divergence in perspectives and methods, urban economics and urban planning share an intense interest in many topic areas: the nature of cities, the prosperity of urban economies, the provision of urban services, efficient systems of transportation, and the proper allocation of land between urban and environmental uses. In bridging this gap, this book highlights the best scholarship in planning and economics that addresses the most pressing urban problems of our day and will stimulate further dialog between scholars in urban planning and urban economics.