If you are like me you like to read books about cities and urban affairs. 

 

Here are some that I like, or that influenced me, over the years.

 

Lewis Mumford, The City in History

 

Paul Zucker, Town and Square

 

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of American Citys

 

(its been years since I read the above, but at the time I really liked them)

 

Myers & Wade, Chicago, Growth of a Metropolis

 

(probably the most influential book for me...a mix of architecture, history, and geography, looking at the urban fabric of neighborhoods and factorys and commercial, as well as "downtown" & landmark buildings.)

 

Sam Bass Warner, The Urban Wilderness, and Streetcar Suburbs.

 

Gritty Cities (it came out in the 1970s..dont know the author).

 

Reyner Banham, Los Angeles, The Architecture of the Four Ecologys

 

Mike Davis, City of Quartz

 

(two books that compliment each other)

 

Richard Longstreth, City Center to Regonal Mall

 

(another Los Angeles book..theres been alot of interesting stuff on LA).

 

 

    I like "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander. There are 253 chapters, each one a few pages about a certain aspect of building or town construction. Some examples are Roof Garden, Sleeping to the East, Local Town Hall, and Corner Grocery.

 

    I want to read Death and Life by Jane Jacobs since everyone seems to recommend it.

 

 

 

Anything by Jacobs or Mumford is a good start.

 

I have a few to contribute, but I'll have to do it later.

Images of the city - Kevin Lynch. Very philosophical.

 

Cities and the creative class - not sure who wrote it but lots of stats (will become irrelevant soon).

 

Cities back from the edge - Gratz

 

Death and Life - Jane Jacobs. Duh. 

 

City Politics: Private Power and Public Policy - Judd Swanstrom. Good if you want to learn how city government operates and how private power influences them.

 

 

ANYTHING BY RICHARD SENNETTE! HE IS A FRIGGIN GENIUS!!!!

 

The Culture of the New Capitalism, Yale (2006), ISBN 0300119925

Respect in a World of Inequality, Penguin (2003), ISBN 0393325377

The Corrosion of Character, The Personal Consequences Of Work In the New Capitalism, Norton (1998), ISBN 0393319873

Flesh and Stone: The Body And The City In Western Civilization, Norton (1994), ISBN 0393313913

Authority, Faber Faber Inc (1993) ISBN 0571161898

The Conscience of the Eye: The design and social life of cities, Faber and Faber (1991), ISBN 0393308782

Authority (1980), ISBN 0571161898

The Fall of Public Man, Knopf (1977), ISBN 0141007575

The Hidden Injuries of Class, with Jonathan Cobb, Knopf (1972), ISBN 039331085X

The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity & City Life (1970), ISBN 0393309096

Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes of Industrial Chicago, 1872-1890, Harvard (1970), ISBN 067429226X

Classic Essays On The Culture Of Cities, editor (1969), ISBN 013135194X

Nineteenth Century Cities: Essays In The New Urban History, coauthor, Yale (1969)

 

Highlighted are ones that I know for a fact have a very urban theme.

 

 

  "City of Tomorrow" by LeCorbusier

"Halfway to Everywhere" by William Hudnut

-about first-tier suburbs

Alot of good ones already listed, here's a few that I didn't see listed yet:

 

"The Granite Garden" by Anne Whiston Spirn

- about the interaction of natural and built environments and processes

 

"Urban Design, The American Experience" by Jon Lang

- a textbook, but a good intro and presents a useful framework of "Functional" urban design

 

"The City in Time" ?  author?

- a wonderful overview of urban design and planning from prehistory to modern, but my copy was stolen and I'm not sure if this is the exact name.  Does anyone else remember it?

 

Interestingly, I seldom read books about cities anymore.

Any planning/urban designers, architects know of any good books on the urban design that include site plans that incorporate different media? I think they look much better and much more three dimensional with autocad mixed with watercolor, color pencil,etc but i'm sure you have to be careful of how it's done.

Suburban Nation by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck

 

A good roundabout warmup to all that is wrong with our suburban lifestyle.

 

 

i have read or at least seen and looked at most of those jeff, but i gotta say you really really caught me by surprize with one...it's been my fav forever:

 

Reyner Banham, Los Angeles, The Architecture of the Four Ecologys

 

^wish i would have kept my copy...its another hard to find early 70's book. it's so very eternally el lay. along those lines i also like (and own) the large eames design book by neuhart, neuhart & eames.

 

I have to give a favorable review for The Great Neighborhood Book by Jay Walljasper. There are lots of pictures and interesting, innovative examples of how to improve any urban neighborhood.

City, William H. Whyte

Cities: Back from the Edge, Roberta Gratz

The Living City: Thinking Small in a big Way, Roberta Gratz

Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler

Home from Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler

Main Street Blues, Richard O. Davies (smaller cities, using Camden, Ohio, as an example)

Get Urban, Kyle Ezell

20th Century Sprawl, Owen Gutfreund

Building Suburbia, Dolores Hayden (suburban title, urban sensibilities)

Architecture and the American Dream, Craig Whitaker

 

To add to the excellent recommendations above:

 

The Regional City - Peter Calthorpe

The City Shaped and

The City Assembled - Spiro Kostof (best texts I was assigned in college, along with Caro's Power Broker)

 

More specialized:

 

The High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup

Great Streets - Allan Jacobs

Traditional Construction Patterns - Steve Mouzon

 

Has anyone read Kevin Lynch's last book? "Good City Form" ?

Suburban Nation by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck

 

A good roundabout warmup to all that is wrong with our suburban lifestyle.

 

 

I'm reading this now. So far it's pretty interesting, I think it does a good job of explaining why the suburban model doesn't ultimately work without brow beating everybody who lives there.

I didn't bother reading any of Andres Duany's books. To be honest, I'm not that impressed with a few of his communities. The very fact that The Truman Show (a movie about a man literally living in a giant bubble) took place in Seaside, FL speaks volumes.

He's a bit doctrinaire, but has a lot of good ideas that are well-rooted.

 

Seaside wasn't intended to be a model of the principles of new urbanism and only its critics claim it to be such.  It was and is an oceanside resort community designed according to traditional town patterns.  It's success, along with other emerging trends around that time, are what led to the CNU charter and the popularity (and bastardization) of NU. 

 

To not read his/their books based on a misunderstanding of one community seems strange.  I see Suburban Nation as a modern-day Death and Life and think it should be required reading for planning schools.  Whether or not you agree with the solutions, it breaks down the problems better than any other book I've read.

It's an isolated resort community. It's a step up from Panama City Beach but it's still boring. Even if I were retired, I would probably shoot myself after having to live there.

 

He's a bit doctrinaire, but has a lot of good ideas that are well-rooted.

 

 

I think we all love his ideas becauase of the nostalgia; we're so filled with longing for the past. I think people are starting to crave the small town environment. Maybe that's why they loved Sarah Palin so much too.

 

I guess what I hate is the idea of master planned communities; even those that take into consideration the enlightened wisdom of mixed uses, form based zoning, or what have you. I think there's just too much master planning with a focus on creating a 'sense of community'. I really hate that term. To create a community and sterilize, standardize the hell out of it, you're creating an incredibly boring, inflexible place resistent to change.

 

I think the real "New Urbanism" comes in the form of infill and reuse - not master planned communities (no matter how dense or 'full of character' they may be. Master planned urbanist communities aren't very memorable. For God's sake, hardly anyone has even heard of Andres Duany's communities. Evolving inner city neighborhoods are much more interesting. A master planned community designed with immediate fullness is like a novel with no secrets, conflict or surprises. Everything is revealed at the beginning. In other words, it's boring and lacks continuity. His communities aren't a narrative! It would make for a boring read. There's no indication of time having been imposed on the place.

 

Places have "character" when buildings and spaces take on uses that they weren't intended for. When, for instance, a parking space is converted into a pocket park to make a political statement. Or when kids play on loading docks instead of the parks that were built for them. When the use of the first floor of a building changes. Those are mutations. I want to hear Andres Duany talk about ambiguity and flexibility. You can't just apply 20th century models to 21st century problems.

Here's another thought-provoking work, J.H. Crawford's Carfree Cities.  It has an international flavor to it, and yet gives a good history of how some American cities were designed before moving to a discussion of a proposal for cities designed without cars. Easy reading, I highly recommend it even if you never have any intention of living without a car. Much of the book also can be found on his website, and the photographs are outstanding. 

 

http://www.carfree.com/

 

 

 

Seaside wasn't intended to be a model of the principles of new urbanism and only its critics claim it to be such. It was and is an oceanside resort community designed according to traditional town patterns. It's success, along with other emerging trends around that time, are what led to the CNU charter and the popularity (and bastardization) of NU.

 

To not read his/their books based on a misunderstanding of one community seems strange. I see Suburban Nation as a modern-day Death and Life and think it should be required reading for planning schools. Whether or not you agree with the solutions, it breaks down the problems better than any other book I've read.

 

I'm reading both "Death and Life" and "Suburban Nation." Duany's book is definitely an easier read, but they are both awesome.

I utterly second Robert Caro's The Power Broker.  Anybody who wants to know how we got to this freeway-based society needs to read this. 

 

Regarding Kunstler, once you've read Geography of Nowhere, you need not look at his other books, which I consider to be lesser-siblings (annoying and louder mimics) of the eldest book.

 

I have no idea how anybody can read one of Mumford's books, much less more than one.  Again, although I agree with Mumford on many points, he too suffered the same syndrome as Kunstler to take one idea and pound away at it mercilessly.  The horse is dead, Lewis: put down that cudgel.

 

For something gentler and more pleasant, read Witold Rybczynski's Home and City Life.

I want to hear Andres Duany talk about ambiguity and flexibility. You can't just apply 20th century models to 21st century problems.

 

If you'd bother to read the book, you'd find your answers.  I've yet to meet anyone involved with new urbanism who doesn't prefer and preach the gospel of the real deal.  These communities aren't an answer to historic cities and towns, they're an alternative to the the model on which 99% of development today is based.  I agree 100% with what you've said about organic or planned cities transformed over time, I wouldn't live anywhere else.  But I still get satisfaction in working to encourage dense, responsible growth, whether it's infill or greenfield.  Your (and most planning academics') frustration should be directed toward developers, builders, and local governments, not the planning consultants they hire.

 

Whether you've heard of anyone's developments is irrelevant in terms of their success.  Most aren't out there for starchitect fame.  The satisfaction of those who live in them, as well as the pent up demand which keeps prices high (despite planners' best intentions) speak volumes about how well these places work, even within the current framework of build-by-numbers development.

If I recall right Duany advocates using design standards as a framework, so you will get a certain ubran form, but with variations. 

I've Read "Suburban Nation." I've heard Duany speak. I've met him. He's got a vision that I largely agree with. But he tends to be way too rigid on all sorts of standards -- which would throw out a lot of bad projects, but also a lot of good ones that don't follow his prescriptive details. Not enough flexibility.

I want to hear Andres Duany talk about ambiguity and flexibility. You can't just apply 20th century models to 21st century problems.

 

If you'd bother to read the book, you'd find your answers. I've yet to meet anyone involved with new urbanism who doesn't prefer and preach the gospel of the real deal. These communities aren't an answer to historic cities and towns, they're an alternative to the the model on which 99% of development today is based. I agree 100% with what you've said about organic or planned cities transformed over time, I wouldn't live anywhere else. But I still get satisfaction in working to encourage dense, responsible growth, whether it's infill or greenfield. Your (and most planning academics') frustration should be directed toward developers, builders, and local governments, not the planning consultants they hire.

 

Whether you've heard of anyone's developments is irrelevant in terms of their success. Most aren't out there for starchitect fame. The satisfaction of those who live in them, as well as the pent up demand which keeps prices high (despite planners' best intentions) speak volumes about how well these places work, even within the current framework of build-by-numbers development.

 

I'm not blaming planning consultants. I know developers are the ones who steer the entire project.

 

I understand completely what you're saying. I would definitely prefer seeing these new urbanist models as opposed to tape worm subdivisions. However, it seems like the most desirable and profitable land with the least amount of site constrants have already been developed. I think we're going to be forced to look at more creative ways of transforming existing urban fabric.

 

I want there to be more books that give creative solutions for broken down shopping centers. Can we make areas around it more dense and build a parking garage with something on the first floor supporting it - while transforming a large portion of that sea of parking in front, into an attractive commons? Can we use market studies to convince banks to finance new development where large hospitals exist in deteriorating neighborhoods that would be prime location for the rising elderly population? If that worked, how would we deal with their biggest concern (crime) ? To me, those are some of the biggest challenges we're facing.

I like Big Plans: The Allure and Folly of Urban Design by Kenneth Kolson. The author does a fairly in depth and I think well researched analysis of the Burnham Cleveland Mall plan and Shaker Heights as well as the Erieview urban renewal scheme.