America's once-vibrant small-to-midsize cities--Syracuse, Worcester,                 Akron, Flint, Rockford, and others--increasingly resemble urban wastelands. Gutted                 by deindustrialization, outsourcing, and middle-class flight, disproportionately                 devastated by metro freeway systems that laid waste to the urban fabric and                 displaced the working poor, and struggling with pockets of poverty reminiscent of                 postcolonial squalor, small industrial cities--as a class--have become invisible to                 a public distracted by the Wall Street (big city) versus Main Street (small town)                 matchup. These cities would seem to be part of America's past, not its future. And                 yet, journalist and historian Catherine Tumber argues in this provocative book,                 America's gritty Rust Belt cities could play a central role in a greener,                 low-carbon, relocalized future. As we wean ourselves from fossil fuels and realize                 the environmental costs of suburban sprawl, we will see that small cities offer many                 assets for sustainable living not shared by their big city or small town                 counterparts: population density (and the capacity for more); fertile, nearby                 farmland available for local agriculture, windmills, and solar farms; and                 manufacturing infrastructure and workforce skill that can be repurposed for the                 production of renewable-energy technology. Tumber, who has spent much of her life in                 Rust Belt cities, traveled to twenty-five cities in the Northeast and Midwest--from                 Buffalo to Peoria to Detroit to Rochester--interviewing planners, city officials,                 and activists, and weaving their stories into this exploration of small-scale                 urbanism. Smaller cities can be a critical part of a sustainable future and a                 productive green economy. Small, Gritty, and Green will help us develop the moral                 and political imagination we need to realize this.

Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World (Urban and Industrial Environments) PDF

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