Here is a refreshing look at how American cities are leading the way toward greener, cleaner, and more sustainable forms of economic development.

In Emerald Cities, Joan Fitzgerald shows how in the absence of a comprehensive national policy, cities like Chicago, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle have taken the lead in addressing the interrelated environmental problems of global warming, pollution, energy dependence, and social justice. Cities are major sources of pollution but because of their population density, reliance on public transportation, and other factors, Fitzgerald argues that they are uniquely suited to promote and benefit from green economic development. For cities facing worsening budget constraints, investing in high-paying green jobs in renewable energy technology, construction, manufacturing, recycling, and other fields will solve two problems at once, sparking economic growth while at the same time dramatically improving quality of life. Fitzgerald also examines how investing in green research and technology may help to revitalize older industrial cities and offers examples of cities that don’t make the top-ten green lists such as Toledo and Cleveland, Ohio and Syracuse, New York. And for cities wishing to emulate those already engaged in developing greener economic practices, Fitzgerald shows which strategies will be most effective according to each city’s size, economic history, geography, and other unique circumstances. But cities cannot act alone, and Fitzgerald analyzes the role of state and national government policy in helping cities create the next wave of clean technology growth.

Lucid, forward-looking, and guided by a level-headed optimism that clearly distinguishes between genuine progress and exaggerated claims, Emerald Cities points the way toward a sustainable future for the American city.

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Over the last fifteen years, American taxpayers have spent over 0 billion to wage the war on drugs–three times what it cost to put a man on the moon. In Drug Crazy, journalist Mike Gray offers a scathing indictment of this financial fiasco, chronicling a series of expensive and hypocritical follies that have benefited only two groups: professional anti-drug advocates and drug lords.

The facts are alarming. More than twenty-five years ago, a presidential committee determined that marijuana is neither an addictive substance nor a “stepping stone” to harder drugs, but the embarrassing final report was shelved by a government already heavily invested in “the war against drugs”. Many medical experts recommend simply prescribing drugs to addicts, and communities that have done this report a lower crime rate and reduced unemployment among drug users.

In a riveting account of how we got to this impasse– discriminatory policies, demonization of users, grandstanding among both lawmakers and lawbreakers — conventional wisdom is turned on its head. Rather than a planned assault on the scourge of addiction, the drug war has happened almost by accident and has been continually exploited by political opportunists.

A gripping account of the violence, corruption, and chaos characterizing the drug war since its inception, Mike Gray’s incisive narrative launches a frontal attack on America’s drug orthodoxy. His overview of the battlefield makes it clear that this urgent debate must begin now.Drug Crazy is a scathing indictment of America’s decades-long “war on drugs,” an expensive and hypocritical folly which has essentially benefited only two classes of people: professional anti-drug advocates and drug lords.

Did you know that a presidential commission determined that marijuana is neither an addicitve substance nor a “stepping stone” to harder drugs … only to have President Nixon shelve the embarrassing final report and continue the government’s policy of inflated drug addiction statistics? Did you know that several medical experts agree that “cold turkey” methods of withdrawal are essentially ineffective and recommend simply prescribing drugs to addicts … and that communities in which this has been done report lower crime rates and reduced unemployment among addicts as a result?

Whether he’s writing about the American government’s strong-arm tactics toward critics of its drug policy or the reduction of countries like Colombia and Mexico to anarchic killing zones by powerful cartels, Mike Gray’s analysis has an immediacy and a clarity worth noting. The passage of “medical marijuana” bills in California and Arizona (where the bill passed by a nearly 2-to-1 majority) indicates that people are getting fed up with the government’s Prohibition-style tactics toward drugs. Drug Crazy just might speed that process along.

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