Among several books about sustainability and green urbanism, I think the “ Green Urbanism in Asia: the Emerging Green Tigers” is one of the interesting and useful books about the green city. Below is my review why this book is worth reading for those who care about the sustainable and urban city.
Newman, P. and Matan, A. 2013. Green Urbanism in Asia: The Emerging Green Tigers. World Scientific.
Green Urbanism in Asia: The Emerging Green Tigers is the snapshot of the new trends in applying the green city design in Asia. Newman and Matan discuss and focus on green urbanism and innovations in green urbanism, which mentioned seven features of green urbanism that are emerging. These are described as seven archetypal cities: the renewable energy city, the bioregional carbon-neutral city, the distributed city, the biophilic city, the eco-efficient city, the place-based city and the sustainable transport city. The book is a collection of stories but the data are not yet assessed as the changes are observing. The author wants to introduce the stories in Asia about green urbanism, which several cities are working with and learnt from Europe. Asia is the area where is new to the implication of green urbanism and biophilia concept compared to Europe. Except for the introduction chapter, which introduces the general information and definitions about 7 different features of green urban, the next 7 chapters go deeper in each type of green city. This book also wants to set out the characteristics of the new city in the sixth economic wave. This is the valuable resource for those who study and research about green urbanism and sustainable city development, from the new students to the practitioners, and for those who are concerned with the future of the sustainable cities and hope to transform this vision in reality.
Dr Peter Newman is the Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University. He also sat on the Board of Infrastructure Australia and is a Lead Author for Transport on the IPCC. He has been an advisor on several governmental sustainability programs and in 2014 he was awarded an Order of Australia for his contributions to urban design and sustainable transport. He has written more than 20 books on sustainability and cities such as “Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change’ (2009), ‘Green Urbanism Down Under’ (2009) and ‘Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence’ with Jeff Kenworthy ”, included the “Green Urbanism in Asia: The Emerging Tigers”. Besides, he has published a number of articles on sustainability and urban design each year. Dr Mewman is the leading person in sustainability and transport solutions in Australia, which contributed in – country sustainability development as well as the international academic research about sustainability. He has held different positions in both Academic field as well as the various institution departments (Curtin University 2019).
Dr Anna Matan is a researcher and lecturer at Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute in Australia, interested in creating sustainable, vibrant and people-focused urban places. Her research focus is on walkability, pedestrian planning, urban design and transportation planning (Newman and Matan 2013).
The book has done a good job of introducing the different types of sustainable cities, especially seven archetypal cities. It also investigates the first signs of the changing economy. In addition, the book also helps to understand the importance of cities, as it is where the growth and dynamism of change are happening globally and especially in Asia. Even the specialists in the sustainability fields or the new students as well as other audiences, the book also help to draw pictures of different type of sustainable cities. The author focuses on learning in leading cities in Asia as an example for others to follow. They also help to show us what is possible in order to create the model for the city, which is the combination of the effectively integrating nature, sustainability and quality of life. These lessons are also learnt from the Europe cities where the sustainable cities take part in the politic and development of the Governments.
Chapter 1 is the general introduction about urbanization and the need for the green urban. This chapter also introduces what is the book will do, what is the purpose of the book and how it will explain in sequence. In this part the authors also want to share what is the book based on in order to help the reader understand the history and trend of the problem.
Chapter 2 answers the question of “ what is green urbanism?” It will help the readers having general information about all 7 types of archetypal cities in the sixth innovation wave. The authors introduce the definition as well as the understanding and characteristic of each type of city in general understanding.
From chapter 2 to chapter 8 introduce details about each type of city and illustrated by different examples with photos to help audiences have a more visual look about the characteristic of each city.
The authors present the book as the collection of the stories and examples from different cities in Asia which leading in green urbanism and city planning. The authors’ viewpoint is also based on the different learning from different books of Beatley about green urbanism in Europe (Newman and Matan 2013). They try to show the audiences what is possible to apply in these cities and how other cities could apply the model of the green city and green urbanism in their circumstances, especially in Asia. Besides, Newman and Matan want to integrate the practices from Europe with good practices in Asia cities to transform the good methods and models for future cities.
The book uses simple and understandable language to write for different intended audiences, from the students, practitioners to the experts in the sustainability and urban alike. Therefore, anyone who interested in this topic could easily understand and get into the context of the book. Besides, the evidence and examples used in this book are very concise and reliable. They were taken mostly by the author and also from the reliable resource, which is based in the examined cities. The authors use simple language to explain which is easy to understand. They try to ease the jargon in order to approach different audiences, which is not expert in this subject. I think this is one of the successes of the book. The useful book does not only help to enrich the knowledge of the specialist and practitioner but also introduce to the new readers about the new definition in an understandable way. That is how the book is structured when the first two chapters introduce the general and definitions of the seven type of city, then the next chapters explain it in details with clear information and illustrated by photos. In addition, the way the author uses the example is very easy to understand and illustrates clearly the purpose of the learning. The photos, as well as the descriptions help readers imagine each city in front of eyes. This way plays an important role in how the book and each case study introduce the features of sustainable cities. Furthermore, there is almost no mistake of a typo found, which is also another success of the book. It shows how important and careful the book was made.
The book ends with a question in chapter 10 ”Will Asian cities will take over the green urbanism agenda?” opens an interesting question and debate about his topic as well as the role of Asian cities in future. After the introduction and the explanations of all the different type of city, I think this part is the most interesting part of the book. In my opinion, this is both the opportunity and the challenge, which each audience will have a different point of view based on their opinion and experience. With me, Asia is my hometown, however, there are more challenges and difficult to become the leading area in green urbanism in the future compared to other continents. This could be resulted by several reasons but base on the culture, social, history and the trend of economic development, governments and leaders in these countries as well as all the residents need to have the right strategies and mission to make this vision become true. The rapid growth of cities, especially in the developing countries, especially in Asia put an enormous demand on the sustainable development system, and the focus on the economy is the obvious threads and obstacles for the development of the green cities.