City design that incorpoarate urban farming on residential lots (in many regions, the only prime agricultural land that is left is in backyards) or community plots, preserves farmland at the urban edge, and provides in-town farmer's market can reduce the energy footprint of eating. Similar attention to other urban systems and their complex interactions can reduce catastrophic impacts on resources and communities that are continents away.
In many cases, the footprints of resources like energy, food, and building materials have such obscure interconnections that they seems to be impossible to unravel. The challenge to city makers is to uncover and apply hidden connections to reduce footprints of human habitation.

Design for Ecological Democracy, by Randdolph T. Hester, MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-08351-5