"High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity--plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. Here, architects are revered deeply, with humanity's survival reliant on a privileged few. If not for their abilities, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below. Charismatic and powerful, Iravan is one such architect. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his archeologist...

The town of Acorn Hill is divided over the coming of a new gas station to be built on Fairy Pond after draining it and destroying its natural beauty.

In the first decade of this century, for the first time in history, the majority of the planet's population resided in cities. We are an urban planet. If ongoing changes in climate are to have an impact on the human species, most of these impacts will play out in cities. This fact was brought into full relief in the summer of 2003, when more than 70,000 residents of Europe perished in one of the most prolonged and intense heat waves in human history....

"Charlotte Bishop is out of options in New York City. Life has become overwhelming after she quit her job and got blacklisted by her former high-profile boss. She's forced to return to her hometown in Pennsylvania, a town she hasn't seen since she was a child, to lick her wounds. She is surprised to find the small town thriving and bustling with activity--a stark difference from the desolation described by her late mother. Henry Mercer is the guy...

In Steel Town, it's always raining, freight trains come and go, the big furnace roars, and the steel mill never sleeps.

"As global demand for energy grows and prices rise, a city's energy consumption becomes increasingly tied to its economic viability, warns the author of The Very Hungry City. Austin Troy, a seasoned expert in urban environmental management, explains for general readers how a city with a high "urban energy metabolism"--That is, a city that needs large amounts of energy in order to function--will be at a competitive disadvantage in the future. He explores...

"Wyoming is reconsidering its urban areas and transforming forgotten parts of its collective downtown. Casper, Cheyenne, Sharidan, Jackson, Rawlins, Laramie and other cities around the state are all developing centralized places where people can live, work and walk to where they need to be. Wyoming PBS meets loft dwellers and developers, downtown activists and a growing number of Cowboy State locals looking for a more urban lifestyle. We follow the...

"In a near future where climate change has severely affected weather and agriculture, the North End of an unnamed city has long been abandoned in favor of the neighboring South End. Aside from the scavengers steadily stripping the empty city to its bones, only a few thousand people remain, content to live quietly among the crumbling metropolis. Many, like the narrator, are there to try to escape the demons of their past. He spends his time observing...