Two Books by Timothy Beatley at each end of the first decade of the 21st century extract lessons from leading european cites on sustainable urban development: (1) Green Cities of Europe, 2012, and (2) Green Urbanism--Learning From European Cities, 1999. Excerpts follow:
"Making a city fundamentally sustainable is a daunting task, but fortunately, there are dynamic, innovative models outside U.S. borders. Timothy Beatley has brought together leading experts from Paris, Freiburg, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Heidelberg, Venice, Vitoria-Gasteiz, and London to illustrate groundbreaking practices in sustainable urban planning and design. These cities are developing strong urban cores, building pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, and improving public transit. They are incorporating ecological design and planning concepts, from solar energy to natural drainage and community gardens. And they are changing the way government works, instituting municipal "green audits" and reforming economic incentives to encourage sustainability. Beatley offers vital lessons to the domestic planning community about not only what European cities are doing to achieve that vision, but precisely how they are doing it. The result is an indispensible guide to greening American cities."
"[In] one of the early syntheses of european lessons, Green Urbanism, Timothy Beatley . . . examines a holistic approach for dealing with sprawl from Europe's sustainable city movement. From an extensive examination of European experience, Beatley draws out [key] lesson's on the progress and policies from twenty-five of the most innovative cities in eleven European countries including Vienna, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Zurich, Amsterdam, London, Berlin. . . . [Lessons focus on] what these cities' experience can teach us about effectively and creatively promoting sustainable development in the United States. Green Urbanism is the first full-length book to describe urban sustainability in European cities, and provides concrete examples and detailed discussions of innovative and practical sustainable planning ideas."