Degrowth in the Suburbs

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.

Explores the prospects of turning the current energy-economic crisis into an opportunity by unpacking a vision of 'degrowth in the suburbs' Develops a new understanding of the relationship between urban (or suburban) form and political economy Offers fresh contributions to current debates about degrowth, which up to now have had very little to say about cities, and even less about suburbs

Autorentext

Samuel Alexander is Research Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and lecturer with the Office for Environmental Programs, University of Melbourne, Australia. His books include Prosperous Descent: Crisis as Opportunity in an Age of Limits (2015) and Wild Democracy: Degrowth, Permaculture, and the Simpler Way (2017).
Brendan Gleeson is Director of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Australia. His books include The Urban Condition (2014) and Australian Heartlands: Making Space for Hope in the Suburbs (2006).

Inhalt
Acknowledgement.- Foreword.- Chapter 1 Reimagining the Suburbs beyond Growth.- Chapter 2 Carbon Suburbia and the Energy Descent Future.- Chapter 3 Light Green Illusions and the 'Blind Field' of Techno-Optimism.- Chapter 4 Resettling Suburbia: A Post-Capitalist Politics 'From Below'.- Chapter 5 Unlearning Abundance: Suburban Practices of Energy Descent.- Chapter 6 Degrowth in the Suburbs: Envisioning a Prosperous Descent.- Chapter 7 Regoverning the City: Policies for a New Economy.- Chapter 8 A New Suburban Condition Dawns.- Index.