Environmental City is a history of the environmental movement in Austin--how it began; what it did; and how it promoted ideas about the relationships between people, cities, and the environment. It is also about a deeper movement to retain a sense of place that is Austin, and how that deeper movement continues to shape the way Austin is built today. As Austin grew from a college and government town of the 1950s into the sprawling city of 2010, the "environmental movement" in Austin became the political and symbolic arm of a more general movement for place. The city it helped to create is now on the forefront of national efforts to rethink how we build our cities, reduce global warming, and find ways that humans and the environment can coexist in a big city.
- the Place they thought of as Austin which propelled the movement
- the Political battles between "environmentalists and developers" where ideas about that place were fought out
The Environmental City is also the policies, programs, and people still working toward a city that is defined by environmental protection:
- the groups in Austin working toward green policy and land preservation
- government policies that use innovative market mechanisms to create green power and recycling
- city policy that seeks to address the problems of global warming by choosing to run a city in "green" ways