EcoCities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature Revised Edition

“While most green city books are at best sustainability-light, Richard Register’s Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature steers a course to deep green. His hard-hitting solutions are on a scale commensurate with the problem. Read it and work quickly to implement his many suggestions if you want a tolerable planet upon which to house your home.”
— Randy Hayes, Executive Director, International Forum on Globalization & Founder of Rainforest Action Network

“Ecocities takes you on an exploratory journey into the cities of the future. You will wander along streets flanked by clear streams and flowering shrubs where there is no polluting traffic, or traverse bridges linking gardens and fruit trees many stories above the ground. Yet this is no half-baked dream, but rather a reality based on technologies, architectural designs and functioning buildings that actually exist in several places around the globe, and concepts that have been approved by down-to-earth city planners. I want everyone, especially high school and college students, to read and think about Richard Register’s book. A copy of Ecocities should be in every school library.”
— Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace www.janegoodall.org

“That we are entering a new world, one of rising temperatures and the coming of peak oil production is no longer debatable. What most people miss is that the largest things human beings create — the built community of cities, towns and villages — is the cause of and potential solution to these largest of all problems facing humanity and future life on Earth.

Ecocities places us all right there, well prepared with a vision, enthusiasm, and powerful, practical tools. This book enables us to challenge the doom-sayers and doom-makers to this race for a healthy, sane, compassionate future. We have to win, and, explains the author, here’s how.”
— Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.

“There are few people who know and understand cities in the way Richard Register does and even fewer who are prepared to stand up and be counted as genuine friends of the city. Richard Register is one of those rare authors who can speak and write about cities from both the ‘head and the heart’, who combines solid technical knowledge and skills with a vision of the beauty and ecological possibilities of the city.

In this book Richard Register provides a wonderful account of how we can transform cities into places that are not only sustainable, but which are a joy and inspiration to live in. This book needs to be read not only for its intellectual contribution to future city development, but also for how it speaks to the heart about the true meaning of the city.”
— Jeffrey Kenworthy, Professor in Sustainable Cities, Institute for Sustainabilty and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia

“As an environmental activist I have long admired Richard Register and Ecocity Builders. It’s so clear that with politicians and the private sector focused on bottom lines dictated by inter-election intervals or quarterly dividends, long-term ecological issues tend to lie out of sight.

By taking the perspective of decades and working for incremental change in the right direction, enormous changes can happen in the end. Richard gave me a powerful insight when he showed the rate of renewal within cities and how inculcating ecological principles could be integrated and have a huge effect over time.”
— David Suzuki, The David Suzuki Foundation

“While most green city books are at best sustainability-light, Richard Register’s Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature steers a course to deep green. His hard-hitting solutions are on a scale commensurate with the problem. Read it and work quickly to implement his many suggestions if you want a tolerable planet upon which to house your home.”
— Randy Hayes, Executive Director, International Forum on Globalization & Founder of Rainforest Action Network

” Ecocities takes you on an exploratory journey into the cities of the future. You will wander along streets flanked by clear streams and flowering shrubs where there is no polluting traffic, or traverse bridges linking gardens and fruit trees many stories above the ground. Yet this is no half-baked dream, but rather a reality based on technologies, architectural designs and functioning buildings that actually exist in several places around the globe, and concepts that have been approved by down-to-earth city planners. I want everyone, especially high school and college students, to read and think about Richard Register’s book. A copy of Ecocities should be in every school library.”
— Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace www.janegoodall.org

“That we are entering a new world, one of rising temperatures and the coming of peak oil production is no longer debatable. What most people miss is that the largest things human beings create — the built community of cities, towns and villages — is the cause of and potential solution to these largest of all problems facing humanity and future life on Earth.

Ecocities places us all right there, well prepared with a vision, enthusiasm, and powerful, practical tools. This book enables us to challenge the doom-sayers and doom-makers to this race for a healthy, sane, compassionate future. We have to win, and, explains the author, here’s how.”
— Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble .

“There are few people who know and understand cities in the way Richard Register does and even fewer who are prepared to stand up and be counted as genuine friends of the city. Richard Register is one of those rare authors who can speak and write about cities from both the ‘head and the heart’, who combines solid technical knowledge and skills with a vision of the beauty and ecological possibilities of the city.

In this book Richard Register provides a wonderful account of how we can transform cities into places that are not only sustainable, but which are a joy and inspiration to live in. This book needs to be read not only for its intellectual contribution to future city development, but also for how it speaks to the heart about the true meaning of the city.”
— Jeffrey Kenworthy, Professor in Sustainable Cities, Institute for Sustainabilty and Technology Policy, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia

“As an environmental activist I have long admired Richard Register and Ecocity Builders. It’s so clear that with politicians and the private sector focused on bottom lines dictated by inter-election intervals or quarterly dividends, long-term ecological issues tend to lie out of sight.

By taking the perspective of decades and working for incremental change in the right direction, enormous changes can happen in the end. Richard gave me a powerful insight when he showed the rate of renewal within cities and how inculcating ecological principles could be integrated and have a huge effect over time.”
— David Suzuki, The David Suzuki Foundation