Resilient Coastal City Regions – Planning for Climate Change in the United States and Australia

“Resilience is the new sustainability, especially for coastal cities and regions facing a potent mix of climate change shocks and impacts. Blakely and Carbonell have assembled an impressive set of cases and authors, likely the single best source of information about climate change planning and adaptation in the United States and Australia. The book provides a rich array of ideas, best practices, and innovative solutions for tackling climate change, and is essential reading for planners, citizens, or public officials involved in charting the future of coastal cities and regions. This collection of cases will inform, motivate, and inspire other coastal urban regions in simultaneously adapting to and mitigating global climate change. The book provides a badly needed does of hope – that coastal cities and regions around the world have the power to take tangible and effective steps to confront and plan for climate change, and can provide essential leadership in times of national and international complacency and inaction.” -- Timothy Beatley, Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, School of Architecture, University of Virginia “The United States and Australia share many common social and political traditions, continental landscapes with diverse climatic conditions, and major coastal population and commercial hubs with vast interior hinterlands. In the past several years, both countries have been hit by acute natural catastrophes, reminding us of our shared environmental fragilities. These similarities serve as the template for this book on regional adaptation and sustainability planning to mitigate the potential damages. This is a book for both policy makers and scholars, to help us deal more effectively and efficiently with the increasing confluences of natural disasters and climate change on dense metropolitan areas.” -- Robert Hill, Chairman, Low Carbon Australia; Chancellor, University of Adelaide; Former Australian Ambassador to the United States “Mounting evidence reveals ever-faster, more extreme outcomes in spheres climatic, economic, and so on; earth’s revenge may be sooner than we expect. We must do more than adapt and mitigate, we must reduce and prevent. These are now imperatives, and the only way to reach a future worthy of its name is to plan, especially in our most vulnerable ecotones, such as coastal cities. This book, by masters at their games, shows us how. It is now our turn to act, using their sage advice.” -- Michael Neuman, AICP, Professor of Sustainable Urbanism, University of New South Wales