by Raquel Pinderhughes (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2004)

Raquel Pinderhughes' Alternative Urban Futures explains what we know how to do now better than nearly any other book we've yet seen. In a little over 200 well-footnoted pages, Pinderhughes covers the basic widely-available innovations for dealing with water, energy, transportation waste and food.

If you've read this book, you will find little of her material surprising, but Pinderhughes does a just terrific job of rounding up the best established practices in each field and providing access to the research and case studies which support them.

ï¿œUrban planners and policymakers will have to promote land uses and land use policies principally developed to shape the urban environment in ecologically responsible ways and enhance the livability of human settlements. They will need to support processes and technologies that are explicitly designed to use fewer resources and produce less waste; reduce inefficient patterns of production, distribution, and consumption; use water more efficiently; reduce dependency on nonrenewable resources; and increase reliance on renewable energy sources.ï¿œ