Publisher's Synopsis
This book assembles the latest knowledge linked to urban environments and urban socio-eco-technological systems including urban, energy, transport, material, and ecosystems. Urban environments and systems affect every person's life in many ways and can have negative impacts on the local and global environment. They create value but sometimes with a high environmental cost from a lifecycle perspective. Therefore, scientists and global leaders call for an urban transition to create more urban environments and systems that are climate-positive, sustainable, and healthy, which is necessary for society to function within the planetary boundaries. This is a great challenge. Huge transformations and new ways of thinking regarding the design and co-existence of technical, social, and ecological systems are necessary to turn the present challenge into opportunities. This book, Urban Transition: Perspectives on Urban Systems and Environments, explores this challenge and several different topics related to possible, probable, or necessary urban transitions in the urban environment. It assembles a variety of authors who present many aspects and the latest knowledge linked to urban transitions of the urban environment and urban socio-eco-technological systems - including urban-, energy-, transport-, building- material- and eco-systems. Furthermore, the importance of urban systems and urban environments is seldom clearly linked to their impact on the environment and humans. This book examines this gap, the crucial issues relating to how urban systems influence the urban structure, and how they can be formed and designed to become more sustainable. It explores the link between the complex systems in cities, the physicality of the built environment, and the living environments for the people. The book proposes a rich garden of ideas to provoke and develop current research, debate, and new forms of practice.
