More and more community leaders and citizens are re-thinking how local systems operate and realizing the environmental, financial and community health benefits of creating a more sustainable future for their citizens. Graduate students from Columbia University designed this handbook, released by the U.S. EPA, to help your city go green.

UK-based ODAC (in cooperation with Post Carbon Institute) has prepared a new report aimed specifically at local government in the UK called Preparing for Peak Oil: Local Authorities and the Energy Crisis.

This guidebook describes the characteristics and benefits of high-performance school buildings and details the process to help school planners ask the right questions of their design professionals to ensure the best school design possible. Written primarily for those who make decisions about the design and construction of K-12 schools, it is useful anyone advocating for school buildings that are cost-effective, sustainable, and healthy and productive for students, teachers, and staff.

This highly recommended book for lays out the challenges of our growing dependence on transport fueled by cheap oil. Written for professionals and students in transport, energy, city planning and public policy, Transport Revolutions argues that land transport in the first half of the 21st century will feature at least two revolutions: the use of electric drives over internal combustion engines, and the powering these drives directly from the electric grid. They also discuss marine transport and aviation, the latter of which could see dramatic breaks from current practice.

Developed as a toolkit, "Getting Density Right" was written for land use and design professionals, as well as government officials and community leaders. The book describes the successful methods used in jurisdictions across the country to enact policies, programs, and regulations that support compact development, including codes, zoning, development types, density and design strategies, financial incentives, and planning programs.

This free book from the Environmental Law Institute describes and categorizes three different types of policy strategies for encouraging green building in U.S. cities and counties.

Written by the chair of the LEED-Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) initiative, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature is both an urgent call to action and a comprehensive introduction to "sustainable urbanism"--the emerging and growing design reform movement that combines the creation and enhancement of walkable and diverse places with the need to build high-performance infrastructure and buildings.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement in the UK, "transition" being the term for a process of creating more resilient and self-reliant communities. The handbook is a good guide and motivator to making changes at the local level and includes a compelling argument that peak oil and climate change must be addressed together.

This beautiful book is an excellent reference for coming to grips with that slippery but important issue, density. Density can have both positive and negative connotations -- and effects -- depending on its context and execution. The photos in Visualizing Density illustrate this wonderfully, and can help us get a better mental grasp on the variety of ways people can live at a variety of different density levels.

Originally conceived as a workbook for students in urban and environment studies, public administration, geography, and planning, Greening Cities shows how environmental concerns can be incorporated into local government policy.