Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes

Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes PDF Author: Carl Steinitz
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781559632249
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Leading landscape architect and planner Carl Steinitz has developed an innovative GIS-based simulation modeling strategy that considers the demographic, economic, physical, and environmental processes of an area and projects the consequences to that area of various land-use planning and management decisions. The results of such projections, and the approach itself, are known as "alternative futures." Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents for the first time in book form a detailed case study of one alternative futures project—an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities. The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios which encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures. Scenario-based studies of alternative futures offer communities a powerful tool for making better-informed decisions today, which can help lead to an improved future. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents an important look at this promising approach and how it works for planners, landscape architects, local officials, and anyone involved with making land use decisions on local and regional scales.

Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes

Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes PDF Author: Carl Steinitz
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781559632249
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Leading landscape architect and planner Carl Steinitz has developed an innovative GIS-based simulation modeling strategy that considers the demographic, economic, physical, and environmental processes of an area and projects the consequences to that area of various land-use planning and management decisions. The results of such projections, and the approach itself, are known as "alternative futures." Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents for the first time in book form a detailed case study of one alternative futures project—an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities. The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios which encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures. Scenario-based studies of alternative futures offer communities a powerful tool for making better-informed decisions today, which can help lead to an improved future. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents an important look at this promising approach and how it works for planners, landscape architects, local officials, and anyone involved with making land use decisions on local and regional scales.

Creating Alternative Futures

Creating Alternative Futures PDF Author: Hazel Henderson
Publisher: UADY
ISBN: 9781565490604
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Henderson explains how GNP distorts the goal of human development, pointing out misleading assumptions and redefines health, wealth, and progress for humanity's long-term survival.

Globalization and International Political Economy

Globalization and International Political Economy PDF Author: Mark Rupert
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742529427
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
The politics of globalization include nation-states pursuing power, multinational firms seeking profits for their shareholders, coalitions and networks attempting to promote particular visions of future possible worlds, resistance groups ranging from the nonviolent to the murderous, and ordinary people struggling to feed their families and secure their futures in a rapidly changing world. Globalization and International Political Economy examines processes of globalizing capitalism and the complex politics that are emerging from it--processes and struggles that will determine the shape of our world in the twenty-first century.

Alternative Urban Futures

Alternative Urban Futures PDF Author: Raquel Pinderhughes
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742523678
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Alternative Urban Futures challenges existing models of urban development and promotes alternative paradigms, processes, and technologies designed to fulfill human needs and limit the harmful impacts of human activities on the environment. The book focuses on how planners and policy makers can develop and manage essential urban infrastructures in ways that support sustainable development in the areas of waste management, water supply and management, energy production and use, building design and construction, land-use, transportation, and food systems. Each chapter features case studies that provide concrete examples of how ecologically and socially responsible urban and sustainable development planning and policy approaches have been successfully implemented in cities around the world. The book is especially effective in its emphasis on recently published statistics and writing supporting new planning and policy recommendations. Each chapter ends with a summary, accompanied by a list of questions that can be addressed with information provided in the text.

ExtrACTION

ExtrACTION PDF Author: Kirk Jalbert
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351847309
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
This timely volume examines resistance to natural resource extraction from a critical ethnographic perspective. Using a range of case studies from North, Central and South America, Australia, and Central Asia, the contributors explore how and why resistance movements seek to change extraction policies, evaluating their similarities, differences, successes and failures. A range of ongoing debates concerning environmental justice, risk and disaster, sacrifice zones, and the economic cycles of boom and bust are considered, and the roles of governments, free markets and civil society groups re-examined. Incorporating contributions from authors in the fields of anthropology, public policy, environmental health, and community-based advocacy, ExtrACTION offers a robustly argued case for change. It will make engaging reading for academics and students in the fields of critical anthropology, public policy, and politics, as well as activists and other interested citizens.

Alternative Futures for Global Food and Agriculture

Alternative Futures for Global Food and Agriculture PDF Author: OECD
Publisher: OCDE
ISBN: 9789264247758
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
We face the challenges of developing a global food system that will feed a growing and more affluent population while preserving sensitive ecosystems, competing for limited natural resources, increasing agricultural productivity growth while mitigating and adapting to climate change and other threats, and contributing to rural area well-being. This report develops three contrasting scenarios to illustrate alternative futures, based on several global economic models and extensive discussions with relevant stakeholders, and outlines policy considerations to help ensure that future needs are met in an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable manner. The scenarios highlight the fundamental uncertainties surrounding forward-oriented decision making, and point to the crucial importance of international co-operation across multiple policy areas.

Other Pasts, Different Presents, Alternative Futures

Other Pasts, Different Presents, Alternative Futures PDF Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253017068
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
“The most robust defense of historical counterfactuals to date . . . For those interested in this fascinating subject, Black’s book is indispensable.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) What if there had been no World War I or no Russian Revolution? What if Napoleon had won at Waterloo in 1815, or if Martin Luther had not nailed his complaints to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517, or if the South had won the American Civil War? The questioning of apparent certainties or “known knowns” can be fascinating and, indeed, “What if?” books are very popular. However, this speculative approach, known as counterfactualism, has had limited impact in academic histories, historiography, and the teaching of historical methods. In this book, Jeremy Black offers a short guide to the subject, one that is designed to argue its value as a tool for public and academia alike. He “demonstrates that, in skillful hands, counterfactual history is more than just fun; as one ingredient among many, it can be an extremely fertile source of explanation” (History Today). “[Black’s] illustrative examples of ‘what if' ‘how,’ and ‘why’ will make readers sit back and wonder.”—Kirkus Reviews “With a unique methodology, Black performs a what-if analysis of history to show how little it takes to change the world’s fate . . . This book provokes thought and speculation while also entertaining.”—Foreword Reviews “A sparkling defense of the legitimacy and utility of counterfactual history―of what ifs―and the best single work on its subject available.”—Weekly Standard

Alternative Futures

Alternative Futures PDF Author: K J Joy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789387280090
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 710

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Book Description
A remarkable, first-ever collection of 35 essays on India's future, by a diverse set of authors - activists, researchers, media practitioners, those who have influenced policies and those working at the grassroots. This book brings together scenarios of an India that is politically and socially egalitarian, radically democratic, economically sustainable and equitable, and socio-culturally diverse and harmonious. Alternative Futures: India Unshackled covers a wide range of issues, organized under four sections. It explores ecological futures including environmental governance, biodiversity conservation, water and energy. Next, it envisions political futures including those of democracy and power, law, ideology, and India's role in the globe. A number of essays then look at economic futures, including agriculture, pastoralism, industry, crafts, villages and cities, localization, markets, transportation and technology. Finally, it explores socio-cultural futures, encompassing languages, learning and education, knowledge, health, sexuality and gender, and marginalized sections like dalits, adivasis, and religious minorities. Introductory and concluding essays tie these diverse visions together. Most essays include both futuristic scenarios and present initiatives that demonstrate the possibility of such futures. At a time when India faces increasing polarization along parochial, physical and mental boundaries, these essays provide a breath of fresh air and hope in the grounded possibilities for an alternative, decentralized, eco-culturally centred future. The essays range from the dreamy-eyed to the hard-headed, from the provocative to the gently persuasive. This book would hold appeal for a wide range of readers - youth, academics, development professionals, policy makers, government officials, activists, people's movements, media persons, business persons - concerned about the current state of India and the world, and willing to engage critically in the collective search for a better future.

Gentrification, Displacement, and Alternative Futures

Gentrification, Displacement, and Alternative Futures PDF Author: Erualdo González Romero
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000585700
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
Gentrification is one of the most debilitating—and least understood—issues in American cities today. Scholars and community activists adjoin in Gentrification, Displacement, and Alternative Futures to engage directly and critically with the issue of gentrification and to address its impacts on marginalized, materially exploited, and displaced communities. Authors in this collection begin to unpack and explore the forces that underlie these significant changes in an area’s social character and spatial landscape. Central in their analyses is an emphasis on racial formations and class relations, as they each look to find the essence of the urban condition through processes of demographic change, economic restructuring, and gentrification. Their original findings locate gentrification within a carefully integrated theoretical and political framework and challenge readers to look critically at the present and future of gentrification studies. Gentrification, Displacement, and Alternative Futures is a vital read for scholars and researchers, as well as planners and organizers hoping to understand the contemporary changes happening in our urban areas.

A Transformation Journey to Creative and Alternative Planetary Futures

A Transformation Journey to Creative and Alternative Planetary Futures PDF Author: Victor V. Motti
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527531775
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
This book presents a counter-trend against nationalism, religious extremism, xenophobia, and racism. It advocates an alternative globalization based not on trade, the economy, and politics, but on humanity’s transcendence to a collective consciousness. Inspired by a pantheist worldview, it applies an integral perspective toward strategic foresight and anticipation on the planetary scale. Controversial, disappearing, and emerging binary oppositions are explained within the framework of the mythology of the Lord of Wisdom versus the Ignorant Mind. It shows that our anticipatory planetary era might be characterized by the acknowledgement of our “zero knowledge”, as measured in the ocean of all disciplines; zero carbon for energy; zero war in politics and zero killing in society; zero conscious beings excluded; and zero existence (as we have known it), as humanity merges into some higher and enriched complexity.