The Permaculture City : Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience

Permaculture is more than just the latest buzzword; it offers positive solutions for many of the environmental and social challenges confronting us. And nowhere are those remedies more needed and desired than in our cities. The Permaculture City provides a new way of thinking about urban living, with practical examples for creating abundant food, energy security, close-knit communities, local and meaningful livelihoods, and sustainable policies in our cities and towns. The same nature-based approach that works so beautifully for growing food—connecting the pieces of the landscape together in harmonious ways—applies perfectly to many of our other needs. Toby Hemenway, one of the leading practitioners and teachers of permaculture design, illuminates a new way forward through examples of edge-pushing innovations, along with a deeply holistic conceptual framework for our cities, towns, and suburbs. The Permaculture City begins in the garden but takes what we have learned there and applies it to a much broader range of human experience; we're not just gardening plants but people, neighborhoods, and even cultures. Hemenway lays out how permaculture design can help towndwellers solve the challenges of meeting our needs for food, water, shelter, energy, community, and livelihood in sustainable, resilient ways. Readers will find new information on designing the urban home garden and strategies for gardening in community, rethinking our water and energy systems, learning the difference between a “job” and a “livelihood,” and the importance of placemaking and an empowered community. This important book documents the rise of a new sophistication, depth, and diversity in the approaches and thinking of permaculture designers and practitioners. Understanding nature can do more than improve how we grow, make, or consume things; it can also teach us how to cooperate, make decisions, and arrive at good solutions. As more people flock to urban areas to live, nowhere are the empowering principles of permaculture more needed and desired than in our cities. Author Toby Hemenway (Gaia's Garden) demonstrates that the same nature-based approach that connects the pieces of our landscape together in harmonious ways applies perfectly to our need for water, shelter, food, energy, livelihood, and community. Hemenway moves beyond urban gardening and offers readers practical tips as well as examples from around the country of how people are using permaculture principles to live more sustainably and build deeper connections in urban areas. The Permaculture City also documents the rise of a new sophistication, depth, and diversity in the approaches and thinking of permaculture designers and practitioners, and provides hope and opportunity for our cities, towns, and suburbs.--COVER The surprisingly green city Permaculture design with an urban twist Designing the urban home garden Techniques for the urban home garden Strategies for gardening in community Water wisdom, metropolitan style Energy solutions for homes and communities Livelihood, real wealth, and becoming valuable Placemaking and the empowered community Tools for designing resilient cities.