Managing the Fiscal Metropolis: The Financial Policies, Practices, and Health of Suburban Municipalitiesby Rebecca M. Hendrick (original) (raw)

2013, International Public Management Journal

ReNew Town: Adaptive Urbanism and the Low Carbon Community (New York: Routledge, 2012). ReNew Town reinforces the idea that unique local-scale, place-based, sustainable development when implemented collectively, can become catalyst for transitioning a place towards a more sustainable future. The book documents the process of retrofitting an existing suburban community, Tama New Town on the outskirts of Tokyo, and offers a case study with practical applications and lessons derived from this transformation. Andrew Scott and Eran Ben-Joseph contend that by face-lifting these crumbling suburbs we leave more land in its natural ecological state. This is preferable to the current practice of clearing lands for the development of new eco-cities, which fail to address globally pervasive, large, outdated suburban spaces. ReNew Town is divided into three sections, sustainable initiatives, concepts, and applied prototypes, and has eleven chapters. The book is the result of the collaborative efforts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Sekisui House Japan. There are more than sixty contributors to the work, spanning a variety of disciplinary, cultural, and professional backgrounds. ReNew Town reflects these diverse perspectives, offering plentiful solutions to urban environmental problems, specifically issues relating to water consumption, energy use, housing, transportation options, waste management, and food production. Tama New Town originally housed many young families and was prosperous; however, the city is now shrinking, has an aging population, derailed commerce, and poor housing and services to meet these new demographics needs. The town was built in a steep topographical area, which led to a steep-terraced, physically divided, and a non-pedestrian-oriented community-one that promoted car use over more sustainable methods of transport. ReNew Town succeeds in providing an eco-urban primer, introducing many broad ecological concepts in such a way that nonspecialists and specialists alike can understand and apply the knowledge and skills. For example, in the housing sector, architects and designers created multiple housing plans for low, medium, and high densities. The housing plans were explained with the ecological factors that drove the thought process behind the designs. This tactic of synergistically presenting the ecological problem and showing solutions to address the ecological problem helps the reader to follow the thought process and learn the sequential steps and methods used to bridge the gap between environmental theory and design. Another project in the book that further illustrates this "theory to practice" technique is an innovative time series modeling piece. This graphically illustrates the evolution of Tama New Town from pre-intervention, to current times and then to a predicted future post-intervention. In general, the solutions based on this case study are relevant globally. As we transition into an increasingly urban society augmenting consumption, energy needs, and environmental degradation, the environmental lessons identified in this case study can be used anywhere. The problems of restoring crumbling infrastructure, planning for the needs of an aging demographic,