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The article presents abstracts on city planning-related topics, including visions of waterfront development in postindustrial Philadelphia, the construction of a town planning perception of Colombo, and city planning and the U.S. census.

During the first 2 years of his presidential term, George W. Bush matured as a political leader and neutralized many of his harshest critics. A glaring exception to this characterization is the area of environmental policy. The Bush administration adamantly refused to advance a meaningful strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to commit the United States to the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time, a number of highly public disputes compromised the legitimacy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This appraisal reviews the Bush administration's performance midway through its first term across three pivotal environmental concerns: air pollution, climate change, and toxics remediation. Though environmental proponents denounced the U.S. EPA's provocative policy positions, there are no indications that this criticism has had much political impact. The assessment concludes with an examination of the politics behind the Bush administration's growing anti-environmentalism and some speculation regarding its future electoral implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-participation of the United States in the recently ratified Kyoto Protocol is a matter for global concern because it is estimated that the country produces 24% of all greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide. Here we analyse the commitment of individual states and municipalities to addressing this problem and find that, despite the federal policy, between 24 and 35% of the US population are currently (or soon will be) engaged in policies directed towards significantly reducing anthropogenic climate change. The importance of this sub-national effort, which we estimate corresponds to 27–49% of the gross domestic product, will depend — like the targets adopted in Kyoto — on the real reductions achieved in greenhouse-gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]