From the Ground Up: Local Efforts to Create Resilient Cities

We have long needed a collective vision of how climate resilient cities can also be more vibrant and convivial places to live.From the Ground Up provides this vision, inspiring our cultural imagination with a vivid series of case studies. Years of dedicated research including extensive interviews with activists, organizers, educators, policy makers and designers from across the country are thoughtfully presented in a compendium of leading urban projects.With this pragmatic toolkit, Sant shakes us out of our complacency, awakening us to the breadth of possibilities latent in our everyday environments. The interdisciplinary approach that she models — a meld of civic process, science, policy, design, and invention — will encourage us to build more ecologically attuned, socially just, aesthetically pleasurable, and culturally vibrant living environments.This much anticipated book surpasses all expectations. With a sage introduction by Eric Sanderson and compelling illustrations by Packard Jennings, Sant has orchestrated an engaging urban colloquium. This is a dynamic conversation that you can put in your bookbag and read in the park. When you’re done, you’ll be inspired to grab a shovel, befriend some oysters, and approach the movement afresh!

This book tops the list of one of my favorite books I've read in a long time. We are living through extraordinary times and the overarching narrative can be doom and gloom that leads inevitably to despair. "From the Ground Up" strikes a different note by showcasing stories from around the country that put resilience, equity, and sustainability center stage.

As a long-term resident of a troubled California neighborhood, I can say that this book is a breath of fresh air.For example, Sant opens the book with a description of the pandemic-era Tenderloin, a neighborhood that is crying out for our collective attention. She describes the forces that are keeping it a containment zone for the most brutal kind of human suffering and describes the necessary interventions and improvements needed to make permanent change. Like many cities across the country that From the Ground Up describes, the people who are suffering in the Tenderloin are the most are the most vulnerable among us. They are the ones who bear the brunt of dysfunction.Sant follows the roots of systemic injustice, like those in San Francisco, across Baltimore, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and other cities. Her book offers voice, tactics, and lessons learned from communities across the country. By elevating their voices as a call to action she provides a guide for how to retrieve our communities from the wrenching realities of inequality. We must listen to what she has to say if we're going to find a way out of our multiple overlapping crises.

If you are interested in the present and future of urban development you’ll find this book absolutely indispensable. No book before has so thoroughly and insightfully tackled the recent history of the emergent people-led practices that are reshaping US cities "from the ground up.” In an age of unprecedented environmental challenges and crippling disinvestment in the res publica, the author shows how citizens, activists, and practitioners are coming together to build a movement that is making the difference in our fight for the right to the city and climate justice. Sant’s research explores many urban realities (San Francisco, Minneapolis, New York, New Orleans, Portland, and Philadelphia), illuminating the root causes of pressing challenges as well as the impact of community action in confronting them. Rather than asserting the arguments with her voice alone, Sant elevates a multitude of voices, creating a powerful collective testimony. The research behind the text draws from interviews of a more than 90-person strong cohort of thinkers and doers, making the story even more vivid and compelling. Yet the book is not simply a testimony— it is more than anything a galvanizing call-to-action demonstrating the agency of our collective efforts in bringing about the change we want to see in our cities.

Written during the pandemic, the harrowing Trump presidency, and global protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the author, San Francisco based Alison Sant, interviewed 90 people to incisively profile 9 U.S. cities as urgent calls to action to reverse climate change. She argues that as we witnessed during these past two years, we can change the world in an instant. This book shows us that there are activists, designers and government officials among others who have been doing just that - all we need to do is pay attention and act.– Fay Darmawi, Executive Director, SF Urban Film Fest