Superbia! – 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighbourhoods – Dan Chiras and Dave Wann – New Society Publishers (US) 2006 ISBN 0 86571 490 8 – This one is a ripper! It has loads of practical ideas for bringing back community to your suburb and in the process making it more sustainable. If you can find it, grab it!
Going Local – Creating Self Reliant Communities in a Global Age – Michael H. Shuman – The Free Press (US) 1998 ISBN 0 684 83012 4 – This is a book about economics, how to bring them back to a local scale and what benefits there are if you do. While the book is based around the US ploticial system it does have ideas that could be applied everywhere around keeping money in the local economy rather than having it siphoned off around the country or around the world.
Community Gardens – Penny Woodward and Pam Vardy – Hyland House (AUS) 2005 ISBN 1 864 47096 8 – This is not a “how to” about community gardens but rather a description of various community gardens in Australia; the sort of people who use them, the sorts of things they grow and the techniques they use. Very informative but also good to build up enthusiasm to start your own.
A Handbook of Community Gardening – Susan Naimark Ed. – Charles Scribners’ Sons (US) 1982 ISBN 0 684 17466 9 – This is a “how to” book on developing a community garden. It is a series of articles by members of the Boston Urban Gardeners Inc covering taking the idea through to reality, selecting and developing the site and tending the garden. There is also a section on developing local food systems like food coops and farmers markets. Lots of detail, a good book.
Local Food – How to Make it Happen in Your Community – Tamzin Pinkerton and Rob Hopkins – Green Books (UK) 2009 ISBN 978 1 900322 43 0 – This is a very “hands on” and “how to” book, coming out of the Transition Town movement it has a whole stack of ideas about improving sustainability and community by getting food production back to a local level. Some ideas such as provision allotments reflect the UK experience and have limited application in Aus, but overall a very good book.
How to Save Your Neighbourhood, City or Town – Martiza Pick – Sierra Club Books (US) 1993 ISBN 0 87156 522 6 – While not specifically written around sustainability issues it does give some good advice on how to master community organising techniques to organise a grass roots campaign.
The Locavore Way – Discover and Enjoy the Pleasures of Locally Grown Food – Amy Cotler – Storey Publishing (US) 2009 ISBN 978 1 60342 453 0 – This book is like a series of articles about setting up and tapping into local food resources, so it is easy to read a bit then put the book down, picking it up later without losing the thread. Equal parts of motivation, how to and examples of what people have done.
The Transition Handbook – From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience – Rob Hopkins – Green Books (UK) 2008 – This is the “bible” of the transition movement, which developed out of the Permaculture movement. This book is a complete “how to” of setting up your own transition initiative to relocalise and revive our community spirit, driven by the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change. The book is written around the UK market town and so some development is needed for it to be better applicable to the Aus experience. We bought this book when we were in England a few years ago but now there is an Aus version.
