Urban Meltdown : Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual

by Doucet, Clive

• ISBN13: 9780865715844
• ISBN10: 086571584X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

Poet, city councillor and urban activist, Clive Doucet provides a razor-sharp insider's perspective into how explosive urban growth is accelerating global warming, and why political action seems paralyzed. Faced with powerful lobby groups and re-election pressures, many elected officials have pushed environmental issues onto the back burner. In Urban Meltdown, Clive goes toe-to-toe with the system, pointing out critical issues that must be addressed: Economic growth has no built-in environmental accountability, Political attitudes about the progress model and growth itself have to change, New governance is needed at all levels.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Prologue	p. xi
A Poet Goes to City Hall	p. 1
Global Cities and Horse and Buggy Nations	p. 3
Neighborhoods to Love	p. 11
The Barbell Society and Just-in-Time Delivery	p. 25
From Mont Tremblant to Ski Tremblant	p. 37
Along Bayswater Street	p. 43
Urban Villages	p. 47
It ain't Planning. It's Politics	p. 57
Citizenship versus Faithship	p. 65
The Idea of Progress and Why We Got it Wrong	p. 71
The Mayor of Hiroshima and Intimations of God	p. 73
The Idea of Progress and the First Nations	p. 79
Biological and Social Phase Transitions	p. 89
Cod, Government and the Transpiration Cycle	p. 99
Care of the Soul/Care of the City/Care for the Planet	p. 105
1984-2004: Poets and Visions	p. 111
Cape Breton Beaches and the Gulf of Mexico	p. 117
Trying to Create a New Order of Things	p. 121
The Rise of Cities and Decline of the Planet	p. 123
689 Spadina and Coming of Age in Toronto	p. 143
The 1960s: A global paradigm shift that never happened and how the same pattern is repeating itself	p. 161
The World Social Forum II and Trying to Change Things	p. 183
The World Social Forum III and Failing to Change Things	p. 189
Saving the World with Stephen Lewis?	p. 195
The Bush Bubble Comes to Ottawa	p. 203
Jean de La Fontaine	p. 207
Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual	p. 215
Epilogue	p. 233
Endnotes	p. 239
Bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 246
About the Author	p. 251
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