Opinions

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I believe the ideas (in The Restoration Economy) are truly coming into their own now, and will be central to the development of the 21st century green economy.

MarketXchange, "Sustainability 101: Required Reading"

My copious compliments on your impressive book The Restoration Economy. I got it late last week and finished reading it last night. I am normally not in a breathless tone in praising a book but yours has a message of immense importance.

Mohan K. Wali, Director & Professor, OSU Environmental Science Graduate Program Director & Professor, School of Environment & Natural Resources Professor, John Glenn School of Public Affairs The Ohio State University

I am reading your excellent book, The Restoration Economy. What an eye-opener! My personal observation is that you are the czar holding the keys to a kingdom just being discovered, that will reign as the leading influence for development/restoration in the U.S. and the world evermore.

Dr. Neil Ogg, Associate Vice President, Public Service & Agriculture, Clemson University

The Restoration Economy is a wonderful guidebook for businesspeople like myself. It points to a wealth of practical, profitable, and personally rewarding paths for entrepreneurs and companies interested in restoring and revitalizing our world.

Barry Peterson, CEO, TidalMarsh LLC

These trends, and the hope for business district revitalization, are reinforced by the most respected trend watchers of today, from Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class to Storm Cunningham's The Restoration Economy.

Brad Segal, from his Chapter 1 "The State of Business District Revitalization", in Making Business Districts Work, by David Feehan, MSW, Marvin D. Fait, Ph.D., editors

To say your book has been an inspiration to me is an understatement. Since reading it, I have pursued a profession of commercial real estate and development involving adaptive reuse of historic structures. Each chapter of your book has been a source of entrepreneurial thoughts and ideas. I have recommended, and bought, your book for others including the CEO of a major retailer. Your book comes up in discussions many times.

Dan Peterson, Adam Commercial Real Estate Services

The Restoration Economy is an extremely important and fascinating book. A real must for everybody who is interested in our future, or who wants to be part of the global restoration economy.

Amos Brandeis (www.RestorationPlanning.com) Architect and Urban & Regional Planner, Vice Chairman of the Israel Planners' Association.

This book has expanded my own thinking and optimism about the future...more than any I have read in years. In my work on national environmental policy-- particularly with respect to the restoration of the Nation’s major ecosystems such as the Everglades, Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and coastal Louisiana--I have advocated restoration as a new environmental movement rivaled only by the conservation movement of Teddy Roosevelt and the preservation movement championed by Rachel Carson. Storm Cunningham’s remarkable book, The Restoration Economy, led me to realize that I was thinking too small, and that the success of the environmental movement will be driven by a larger shift in the world economy toward restoration. The linkages Cunningham has uncovered and encouraged between the corporate and environmental policy worlds should help shape the debate for decades to come.

Bill Leary, former Associate Director of Natural Resources, White House Council on Environmental Quality

This book is an original, a first! I profited from it greatly, and I quote from it in my speeches, especially regarding the importance of restoration in the economic life cycle. Cunningham convincingly demonstrates that tremendous markets for new products and services hide just beneath the surface of the deteriorating assets in our natural and built environments. He points us toward restorative development as a smarter, more economically compelling alternative to sprawling new development.

William H. Hudnut III, former 4-term Mayor of Indianapolis

Storm Cunningham, the author of "The Restoration Economy" is a leading researcher on using restoration projects to drive the American economy.

The Snelling Center for Government.

It has been our pleasure to discuss the topic of ecosystem restoration with the extraordinary Storm Cunningham, author of the thought-provoking book, The Restoration Economy, and executive director of Revitalization Institute. Cunningham provides an enlightening economic perspective in our Expert's View column on Page 12

Editor, Summer 2005 issue of PBS&J's Highlights magazine: Read it online at: http://www.pbsj.com/Press/Highlights/PDF/2005Summer.pdf

The book (The Restoration Economy) was fascinating.

Mark Clayton, staff writer, The Christian Science Monitor

...this book delivers more than it promises, because it also offers the greatest new-growth frontier for hundreds of professional and trade associations. …[A]nyone involved in strategic planning--or wanting to understand the macrotrends that are affecting their members--will find The Restoration Economy to be a wealth of insight and ideas. An added bonus: It's the best news you'll read about the world your children will inherit.

June 2004 issue of Executive Update, the magazine of the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives (

Little more than a year after being published, The Restoration Economy is already being hailed by business, political, environmental, and academic leaders as a modern classic. Few books in recent times have so quickly and effectively reshaped our dialogue and assumptions about the future of economic development at the community, corporate, and global levels.

Tim Fields, Senior Vice President, Tetra Tech, Inc. and former Assistant Administrator for Solid Waste & Emergency Response, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The Restoration Economy is required reading for students coming into our Civil Engineering Technology program, so we go through about 160 copies per year. It's the best overview of this rapidly-growing area of opportunity, and it's important that technologists hear about restorative development.

William Humber, Chair, Centre for the Built Environment, Seneca College, Toronto, Canada

The Restoration Economy is required reading here at Weston Solutions. It has been indispensable in helping us refocus our strategy on the restorative development mega-trend, and re-examine the changing buying habits of our strategic clients. We were moving in that direction already, but Storm Cunningham provided the additional clarity we needed.

Bill Robertson, Chairman, Weston Solutions, & former Associate Chief of Engineers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The Restoration Economy is without a doubt the most important and valuable business book I have read in many years. It is also tremendous fun to read. I am just starting my second journey through it, and it is already festooned with over 50 "post-it notes" marking exceptionally insightful and useful passages. It is must reading for anyone involved or interested in the future of planning, community economic development, and restoration of our environment. This is a great book!

Don Pross, Urban revitalization planner & development consultant

Highly recommended (for) public, academic, upper-division undergraduate and up, and professional libraries. ...An important reference and required addition to business and interdisciplinary (library) collections. ...An exciting prescription embracing business profitability as an integral component of protecting, restoring, and enhancing the world's physical, social, and economic infrastructures.

S.R. Kahn, University of Cincinnati

Cunningham does a superb job... By reading this book, one...gets a sense of where business will be going in the future...literally thousands of opportunities for businesses, large and small, to get involved in clean up and restoration.

Dr. William L. Halvorson, US Geological Survey & University of Arizona

Cunningham shows that restoration can benefit both the environment and the bottom line. Most valuable is Cunningham's ability to show the vital link...between those working with the built environment and those working with the natural environment. ...restorative development has proven to be an effective solution from an economic and scientific standpoint.

Howard Kozloff, from his review in the March 2003 issue of Urban Land, the monthly magazine of the Urban Land Institute.

It's hard not to be suspicious of any book that claims to have uncovered 'the major driver of economic growth in the 21st Century'. But even a cursory glance at Storm Cunningham's The Restoration Economy will persuade the most resistant of skeptics that the author has awakened to a reality which is all around us... Anyone who reads this book from cover to cover will not only be convinced by its intelligence and authoritative research, but also disarmed and even charmed by its direct, unpretentious style. ...To call the book practical and real-world is an understatement; it's virtually a guidebook on how to perceive and increase new realms of successful business enterprises in the new millennium. ...Cunningham doesn't simply believe that "we are maturing from the 'exploit and run' behavior of raiders to becoming long-term natives of our planet," and that "this century shows every sign of going down in history as our proudest moment"; he has written a book that will help make that belief a reality. ...This book is an invaluable tool to rally and unite the vision of business, government, and society.

Nicole V. Gagné, from her book review on pg. 184 of the Nov./Dec. issue of Traditional Buildings

Cunningham does an admirable job...on issues of crisis and restoration from around the world. The Restoration Economy is a good read...the logic of creating business opportunities out of restoration work is sound, and the case studies that flesh out these principles are inspiring and memorable.

Christina Kimball, from her book review in Feb. 2003 Environmental Building News

Any companies or consultants looking for new markets must read The Restoration Economy! Opportunities abound in this huge, exploding, little-known economic sector.

Pamela J. Gordon, CMC, President, Technology Forecasters, Inc.

This is a landmark work, extremely well written and developed. This book really opened my eyes on a topic that I had never before considered. I was relieved to see that there is a good and reasonable solution to the ruinous policies of unbridled new development.

Mark Stewart, Senior Vice President, Intrado, Inc.

Storm Cunningham really nails it: The Restoration Economy is THE book for 21st Century corporate and political leaders! It makes a compelling business case for the profitable opportunities we all have for restoring our communities, our economies, and our world.

Dr. Bob Rosen, CEO, Healthy Companies International

Cunningham has bridged the gap between a well-researched academic work and a useful, practical book, certain to be used by redevelopment professionals. I found it a necessary tool in stimulating candid discussions with regulators, developers and planners during my video series project.

John W. Sutherlin, Ph.D., University of Louisiana-Monroe, Prod./Director

A must-read for businesspeople and policymakers! It’s not often that a book forces us to see the world differently, while also inspiring innovative, entrepreneurial, practical solutions to pressing problems. The Restoration Economy is such a book…a blueprint for economic prosperity based on dramatically improving—not just preserving—the quality of our natural and built environments.

Greg Watson, VP, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative