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Degrowth in the Suburbs

A Radical Urban Imaginary

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  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Samuel Alexander

    1. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

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  2. Brendan Gleeson

    1. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

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    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • 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

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Reimagining the Suburbs Beyond Growth

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 1-30

  3. Carbon Suburbia and the Energy Descent Future

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 31-57

  4. Light Green Illusions and the ‘Blind Field’ of Techno-optimism

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 59-86

  5. Resettling Suburbia: A Post-capitalist Politics ‘From Below’

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 87-111

  6. Unlearning Abundance: Suburban Practices of Energy Descent

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 113-143

  7. Degrowth in the Suburbs: Envisioning a Prosperous Descent

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 145-171

  8. Regoverning the City: Policies for a New Economy

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 173-199

  9. A New Suburban Condition Dawns

    • Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson
    Pages 201-206

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 207-213
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Keywords

About this book

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.

Reviews

“In a world seemingly beset by intractable challenges with potentially dire outcomes, Samuel Alexander and Brendan Gleeson offer a beacon of hope through their sketches of a tantalizing and realistic suburban future in which resource use has been downscaled and localised, and most importantly a culture of sufficiency has taken root. They elaborate a bold imaginary demonstrating how the myriad of initiatives that are already present might form the basis of a radically different suburban future. Degrowth in the Suburbs: A Radical Urban Imaginary sets the compass in a direction that will help steer civil society and government towards the type of world we would be proud to bequeath future generations.” (J.K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron and Stephen Healy, authors of Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities)

“There is nothing that embodies the twisted values of growth-addicted capitalism more visibly than suburban sprawl.  Massive matrices of carbon-intensive consumerism, the suburbs reflect the forces that are driving our descent into ecological crisis.  But as deepening crises begin to engulf us, Alexander and Gleeson see an unlikely flicker of hope.  The suburbs, they argue, hold the potential for a new, more resilient way of living that could help see us through the calamities of the Anthropocene.  This is a brilliant, invigorating book, poetically written and full of exciting ideas.  A marvelous achievement.” (Jason Hickel, author of The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson

About the authors

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).


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Degrowth in the Suburbs

  • Book Subtitle: A Radical Urban Imaginary

  • Authors: Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2131-3

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-13-2130-6Published: 11 October 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4736-8Published: 29 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-13-2131-3Published: 21 September 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 213

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Urban Studies/Sociology, Human Geography

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