London's Environment: Prospects For A Sustainable World City

Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume opens with an introductory editorial giving a general review of London's environment and its prospects for a sustainable future. The subsequent chapters are written by experts on architecture, planning, air pollution, biodiversity, transport, rivers, parks, aesthetic aspects of London's landscape, politics, health, and economics. The highly topical material authoritatively describes the major recent developments that have greatly affected London's environment and in some ways have set the city on a path towards a more sustainable future. This progress includes changes in the law (GLA act), politics (adopting sustainability as a political goal), policies on waste disposal (no more landfills), housing areas, building development (e.g. Canary Wharf), traffic management (congestion charges), policies for enhancing biodiversity, transport infrastructure (cars, railways), and managing the risk of floods and other disasters (in response to climate change). The book shows how these policies and practical developments interact, and therefore need to be understood by considering them as a whole. A postscript by the Deputy Mayor of London, Nicky Gavron, is included summarising London's environmental policies that have been developed since the conference on “London Environment and Future” was held on September 18-19, 2002.