Review by Choice Review
The core argument in this volume, part of a series on critical introductions to urbanism and the city, is that cities are an element of the ecosystem, not separate from it, and that environmental processes are filtered through social arrangements that have effects and exacerbate or ameliorate other effects. The book has three main parts, beginning with a historical view of urban development and growth in environmental context that attends to location and design, coping and reform strategies, and global urbanization. In the second part, Benton-Short (geography, George Washington Univ.) and Short (Univ. of Maryland, Baltimore County) review city-nature dynamics, including physical site characteristics, hazards as socially constructed events, cities as biophysical systems, water and air pollution, and waste generation and management. The authors conclude with an assessment of such issues as environmental justice, sprawl, developing world urbanization, and long-term urban sustainability. The book is intended as a supplemental or short-course undergraduate text and is quite accessible, although chapters are of uneven length. The book is well illustrated with both historical and global examples; understandably, it uses New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina to useful and timely advantage to illustrate many of the arguments. Summing Up: Recommended. General and undergraduate libraries. J. S. Wood University of Southern Maine
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
