A taboo-shattering book, How Local Resilience Creates Sustainable Societies sets out how visionary national and local leaders can transform unsustainable societies as they attempt to recover from an age of austerity. By eliminating the culture of dependency in a socially and environmentally progressive way, the book shows how to transcend the political and social spectrum and even unify people around a common purpose. It does this by examining how leaders can make smarter interventions within complex systems to prevent the high cost of social and environmental failure arising from our current economic model. The book explores a number of contemporary themes (e.g. green economy, sustainable urban development, banking reform, equality and democratic renewal) and draws on a wealth of global case learning (e.g. Amsterdam, Brighton, Cape Town, Madison, Matara and Toyama).

Reviews

'How Local Resilience Creates Sustainable Societies asks why orthodox approaches to sustainable urban development have failed and what can be done about this. In doing this Philip Monaghan seeks to unsettle and challenge orthodoxies and highlight the importance of transferring power to ordinary people to build resilience. He makes a practical contribution to how this can be done in an age of austerity. In doing so, he opens up a debate that will be of interest to policy makers, agencies, academics, consultants, community groups and individuals.’ – Dr Mike Hodson, SURF Centre, University of Salford

'Resilience is now, in terms of local action, the fastest growing field of practice and experimentation. Hope and risk are two sides of the same coin and this book, in tune with our times, will help equip you to handle both.' – Ed Mayo, Secretary General, Co-operatives UK

Contents

Part 1: Ending the Wrong Kind of Dependency Culture 1.Establishing need 1.1 Gaps in resiliency work to date? 1.2 A review of the literature 2.Tomorrow and today’s problems: making changsally desirable 2.1 Dilemmas faced by global market regulators and local urban planners 2.2 A new paradigm for tomorrow’s problems 2.3 Struggles to make sophisticated responses in a changing world? 3.A common set of values 3.1 No tinkering around the edges 3.2 Unifying beliefs 3.3 Significant behaviour or not? Part 2. Localism Without Local Government 4.Devolving responsibility 4.1 Communities on the front line or in the firing line? 4.2 Navigating shifts in power, rights and responsibilities 5.Negotiated rights and sanctions 5.1 Return to fairness through contribution 5.2 Area-based negotiations 6.The harmonised constitution 6.1 The journey from rights to responsibilities to subsidiarity 6.2 An enabling constitution for local leadership Part 3. Just Cities 7 .Incentivised migration to compact cities 7.1 Reaffirming the need for compactness 7.2 Ensuring smart density wins 8.Urban development and the green economy 8.1 Pro-business but anti-weak governance: she...