America's once-vibrant small-to-midsize cities -- Syracuse, Worcester, Akron, Flint, Rockford, and others -- increasingly resemble urban wastelands. Gutted by deindustrialization, outsourcing, and middle-class flight, disproportionately devastated by metro freeway systems that laid waste to the urban fabric and displaced the working poor, small industrial cities seem to be part of America's past, not its future. And yet, Catherine Tumber argues in this provocative book, America's gritty Rust Belt cities could play a central role in a greener, low-carbon, relocalized future.As we wean ourselves from fossil fuels and realize the environmental costs of suburban sprawl, we will see that small cities offer many assets for sustainable living not shared by their big city or small town counterparts, including population density and nearby, fertile farmland available for new environmentally friendly uses.Tumber traveled to twenty-five cities in the Northeast and Midwest -- from Buffalo to Peoria to Detroit to Rochester -- interviewing planners, city officials, and activists, and weaving their stories into this exploration of small-scale urbanism. Smaller cities can be a critical part of a sustainable future and a productive green economy. Small, Gritty, and Green will help us develop the moral and political imagination we need to realize this.

Product Description: The catastrophic release of oil into the Gulf of Mexico by BP’s Deepwater Horizon well has been a wake-up call, bringing home to Americans in a very personal way—more powerfully than statistics on peak oil or global warming—the message that we must end our destructive dependence on fossil fuels...read more

Product Description: Book by Alm, Alvin L.