I found this book packed with facts and right up to date, but I could often have done with some illustrations, both graphs and photos. A green city, a green vertical forest building twenty storeys high - what would that look like? I've seen some on the internet, but maybe not those which the author had in mind, and others won't have seen any.

Looking at climate change, pollution of many kinds, and biodiversity loss, the author takes us back and forth, through prehistory and history, from one continent to another, from Cape Town to Milan.

As I am an urban tree surgeon I am in all in favour of planting city trees, for the reasons outlined here. But seldom mentioned are the nuisances caused by tree roots buckling footpaths, cracking walls and fracturing pipes; the dangers of limbs dropping, aphids eating the community garden, branches shading and damaging homes and overhead wires, fissured trees splitting, poisonous seeds being eaten. Trees are a major boon to any urban or suburban space but need informed management. Planting trees which are appropriate for the location is the first step.

Many kinds of environmental information are presented in concise form, such as the dire concept that we use about one and a half planet's worth of resources every year. We're also told of agreements, promises, positive steps. The focus is mainly on city dwellers and how much goods and power they require, how much water they need, how much waste they produce. Megacities are on the increase. Also shown are some interesting economic facts, like the giant firm Daewoo which at one time generated a tenth of the Korean economy, collapsing in 1999. The concept of 'too big to be allowed to fail' was tested but when Daewoo failed, the economy actually flourished, says the author, because all the smaller firms got the investment that would have been wasted down a black hole of debt. This fact is not too far on the page from the birth of agriculture, and this mixes later with Iceland trying to get rid of all need for imported fuel, and African nations installing more solar power than USA. Then we are told 'we' are running out of sand.

So I do think that a clearer structure and more illustration would have improved this book. We could also do with more personal stories and quotes, as mostly it's very abstract. But the content will be extremely useful to climate change protestors, besides being up to date, so I am giving five stars.
Note P132 - 138 in my e-ARC.
I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

First we had members of the intelligentsia telling us that world governance is required to address the world's problems and now we have Ric Casale lecturing all of us on how cities will solve the world's problems. Nonsense! Save your time and read something else.