John Flint is Professor of Professor of Town and Regional Planning in the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Sheffield, UK. Mike Raco is Professor of Urban Governance and Development at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. He previously worked at King's College London.

• Section 1: Introduction: The 'New' politics of sustainable urbanism; Introduction: Characterising the 'new' politics of sustainability: From managing growth to coping with crisis ~ Mike Raco and John Flint; The sustainable city: an obituary? On the future form and prospects of sustainable urbanism ~ Mark Whitehead; Sustainable communities and English spatial policy ~ Allan Cochrane; Constructions of the carbon city ~ Will Eadson; Section 2: Building the sustainable city: Policy fields, current issues and themes; The property industry and the construction of urban spaces: crisis or opportunity? ~ Tim Dixon; Emerging strategies of urban reproduction and the pursuit of low carbon cities ~ Harriet Bulkeley, Mike Hodson and Simon Marvin; Transport in a sustainable urban future ~ Iain Docherty and Jon Shaw; Understanding UK sustainable housing policy ~ Chris Pickvance; Section 3: Placing sustainability: Contexts and conflicts; Urban ecological accounting: A new calculus for planning urban parks in the era of sustainability ~ Sarah Dooling; Neighbourhood Sustainability: Residents' perceptions and perspectives ~ John Flint; Global city planning ~Peter Newman; Conclusions: Towards new politics of urban sustainability ~ John Flint and Mike Raco.

"Ideas of creating more sustainable cities are not new, but the economic downturn and the need for ongoing austerity measures have placed sustainability at the heart of political debates globally and within nation states. This book offers a fresh debate into the relationship between economic growth and the wider needs of societies and new insights into how places manage and cope with global crises, and questions the dominance of neo-liberal thinking." Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London