Urban Development Books Pdf

[Ermengardi Atkisson]

TheDeath and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs (1961). A classic since its publication in 1961, this book is the definitive statement on American cities: what makes them safe, how they function, and why all too many official attempts at saving them have failed. The New York Times writes that The Death and Life of Great American Cities is, "Perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning." Buy this book.

The American City: What Works and What Doesn't, by Alexander Garvin (1995) This definitive sourcebook on urban planning points out what has and hasn't worked in the ongoing attempt to solve the continuing problems of American cities. Hundreds of examples and case studies clearly illustrate successes and failures in urban planning and regeneration, including examples of the often misunderstood and maligned "Comprehensive Plan." Buy this book.

Good City Form, by Kevin Lynch (1995). Lynch looks at connections between human values and the physical forms of cities, sets requirements for a normative theory of city form, reviews earlier physical images of what utopian communities might be, sees what is to be learned from hellish images, and helps us place city forms into one or another of three theoretic constructs; cosmic or ceremonial centers, the machine city, and the city as an organism. Buy this book.

The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream, by Peter Calthorpe (1993). One of the strongest supporters of New Urbanism, architect and urban designer Peter Calthrope makes the case for compact, mixed-use development over the urban sprawl that has dominated much of the development in the past decades. Twenty-four regional plans are presented in the book, focusing on reducing dependance on the automobile and increasing the proximity between home, work, shopping, and recreation. Buy this book.

Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century, by Peter Hall (1996 Updated Edition). Cities of Tomorrow provides an overview of the ideas, events, and personalities that have shaped world urbanization since 1900. The book is organized into ten chapters that treat late 19th-century slums; mass-transit suburbs; the garden city movement; the genesis of regional planning; the 'City Beautiful' movement; the skyscraper city; the city of 'sweat equity'; automobile suburbs; the city of theory; and contemporary urban redevelopment. Buy this book.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert A. Caro (1975). In a tour de force of journalism, Caro documents the life and story of Robert Moses, whose use and abuse of power shaped the politics, the physical structure, and even the problems of urban decline through the decades of the mid-20th century in New York City. The Power Broker is an extremely long book, but a transformative read. Buy this book.

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, by Joel Garreau (1992). First there was downtown. Then there were suburbs. Then there were malls. Then Americans launched the most sweeping change in 100 years in how they live, work, and play. The Edge City gives shape to the trends of the American built environment in the 20th century. Buy this book.

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler (1995). The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots. This is definitive criticism of the American built environment. Buy this book.

The Urban Villagers, by Herbert J. Gans (1962, updated 1982). A detailed report of a participant-observation study of an inner-city Boston neighborhood called the West End and, in particular, of the native-born Americans of Italian parentage who lived there with other ethnic groups. A classic of sociology that redefined the practices of urban planning. Buy this book.

The Essential William Whyte, edited by Albert LaFarge (2000). The result of William Whyte's research is an extremely human, often amusing look at what goes on in our cities' streets. The original title, City: Rediscovering the Center, is out of print. This edition is a collection of much of the original work by William Whyte. Buy this book.

Design With Nature, by Ian L. McHarg (1995). The first book to describe an ecologically sound approach to the planning and design of communities, Design with Nature has done much over the past 25 years to shape public environmental policy. This paperback edition makes this classic accessible to a wider audience than ever before. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 color photos and line drawings. Buy this book.

Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson (1962). Rarely does a single book alter the course of history, but Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did exactly that. The outcry that followed its publication in 1962 forced the government to ban DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's book was instrumental in launching the environmental planning movement. Buy this book.

Planning in the USA: Policies, Issues, and Processes, by Barry Cullingworth (1997). This comprehensive introduction to the policies, theory, and practice of planning outlines land use, urban planning, and environmental protection policies and explains the nature of the planning process. Buy this book.

Great Streets, by Allan B. Jacobs (1995). Which are the world's best streets, and what are the physical, designable characteristics that make them great? To answer these questions, Allan Jacobs has surveyed street users and design professionals and has studied a wide array of street types and urban spaces around the world. With more than 200 illustrations, all prepared by the author, along with analysis and statistics, Great Streets offers a wealth of information on street dimensions, plans, sections, and patterns of use, all systematically compared. Buy this book.

What an interesting topic, Bethany! I live in North Dakota, and two zoos I visit each have an old carousel that has been restored. It IS fascinating to learn about them. I hope you find a great book about carousels!

I love books about books and reading. I chose The Library Book by Susan Orlean for my reading challenge selection. It is about the massive fire in the Los Angeles Public Library in 1986. I am about 4 chapters in, and it is fascinating!

Yes! The S. novel is so fascinating. My sister gave it to me a few years ago for Christmas and I am itching to do a reread. If you look online (I saw the info in an Amazon review) there are suggestions for different ways to read it.

The Code Book by Simon Singh is a great overview/history of codes and code breaking. Very readable and interesting. It ranges from Mary Queen of Scots to the Rosetta Stone to Enigma to the Navajo Code Talkers to the attempts to decipher Linear A and Linear B, to what was current encryption technology at the time (1998). There are some codes in the back for you to try your hand at codebreaking. Highly recommend.

I love reading and learning about dignity in the dying process and hospice care. Many good books have been written on this subject. After reading and learning all I could on this, I recently interviewed for a part time hospice volunteer position and will complete the required training this month. I hope to have the emotional strength to provide this important service.

An interesting read in this category was The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe and was both a great way to get introduced to new books (yay) and dealt with the complex topic of walking with your parent to the end of their life.

This is actually one of my niche interests too though I guess my particular focus is the design of walkable cities and not just urban planning. I blame it all on one of your honorable mentions: Home from Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler. I read that about 20 years ago, and it fit so well with my own thoughts on how we become so disconnected when we spend more time in cars than anywhere else. This also pairs well with my interest in the design of community spaces. As a psychology grad student, one of my proudest moments was convincing my committee to approve 2 classes in the college of design that were in the area they called city design because it made sense to me that if we care about the mental health and well-being of people that we also need to understand how the design of our living spaces and cities influence that in good and bad ways.

I have two fascinations. One is the Russian Czars and their families, especially the Romonovs. I have read a lot of fiction- all time favorite is The Kitchen Boy. I tried to start the new Prime series on this on the family, but I cannot get into it. My other fascination is with religious fundamentalists. I just finish Educated, so interesting. I am fascinated about the look inside families and religions that are so different from my own.

I love book about health and medicine. Particularly books on the brain and how it works. Very unusual for me because I have no background in the medical field (I only have a GED for education) and I am a homeschooling mom in the midwest. ?

This also my favorite niche topic! Strange for me too because I am an artist and librarian who works in higher ed, nothing related to medicine at all. I like to read about the science of dreaming and why the brain dreams in particular.

Socio-linguistics! I got my masters in Applied Linguistics with the intent to teach ESL and completely fell in love with how and why language develops the way it does and how it shapes so many other things about us: politics, economics, traditions, etc. Fascinating!

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