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22.07.08

The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream

Leinberger, Christopher. The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2008.

The main point of this book is the idea that we currently are in a social and economic position in the history of the US to choose between developing walkable urban space or drivable sub-urban (he always hyphenates this word) space or some combination of these two extremes. He explains how drivable sub-urban real estate was turned into a commodity that could be traded on the stock exchange. This commoditization explains the uniformity of every suburban streetscape in the country. There are 19 standard drivable sub-urban products that are recognized as commodities that can be bought and sold on the NYSE. That seems hard for me to believe that the explanation is so simple.

18.07.08

Urban planning reading list from U of Mich

I will be keeping track of the ones that I have read or checked out from the library in this entry

Bold = Read
Italics = Checked out
Links are there if I write about them.

* Barber, Benjamin R. Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Times Books, 1995.

* Bellah, Robert N. [et al.]. Habits of the heart: individualism and commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1985.
"A great and relatively recent critique on American society generally."

* Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.

* Berry, Wendell. The unsettling of America: culture & agriculture. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996.

* Boyle, Kevin. Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age. New York: H. Holt, 2004.

* Calthorpe, Peter, and William Fulton. The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl. Covelo, CA: Island Press. 2001.
“articulately advocates for a sustainable region through New Urbanist design and social equity�

* Diamond, Jared. Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. London, W.W.Norton. 1999.
“Pulitzer Prize winner gives a sweeping history of human societies and their environments over time.�

* Duany, Andres, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck. Suburban nation : the rise of sprawl and the decline of the American Dream. New York : North Point Press, c2000.

* Durning, Alan Thein. How much is enough? the consumer society and the future of the earth. New York: Norton, 1992.
"A provocative and very readable critique of our very unsustainable ways of life."

* Farley, Reynolds Sheldon Danziger, and Harry J. Holzer. Detroit Divided. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, c2000.

* Fishman, Robert, ed. The American planning tradition: culture and policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr. 2000

* Fishman, Robert. Urban utopias in the twentieth century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier 1st MIT Press pbk.ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982, c1977.
“an eloquent intellectual history of three leading urban visionaries of the 20th Century�

* Flyvbjerg, Bent. Rationality and power: democracy in practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1998.
“a seminal case study of the tensions between scientific analysis and political power in planning�

* Garvin, Alexander. The American city: what works, what doesn't. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2nd ed 2002.

* Gore, Albert. An inconvenient truth: the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it. Emmaus, Pa. : Rodale Press, c2006.

* Hall, Peter. Cities of tomorrow: an intellectual history of urban planning and design in the twentieth century. updated ed. Oxford: Blackwell. 2001.
“a very widely-read and sweeping tour of Anglo-American planning history and ideas.�

* Hawken, Paul. The ecology of commerce: A declaration of sustainability. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers. 1993.

* Hayden, Dolores. Redesigning the American dream: the future of housing, work, and family life. Rev. and expand ed. New York: W. W. Norton. 2002.
“combines a suburban history and a feminist critique of urban society to offer a more equitable alternative�

* Jacobs, Jane. The death and life of great American cities. New York, Vintage Books 1961.
"A classic critique of planning" "a paradigm shifter"; from a student: "If you could read only one, read this."

* Jacobs, Jane. Systems of survival: a dialogue on the moral foundations of commerce and politics. New York, NY: Random House, First Edition 1992.
"an interesting and readable theory on ethics (not necessarily related to planning)"; "a paradigm clarifier"

* Klinenberg, Eric. Heat wave: a social autopsy of disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2002.
"an important sociological case study that examines how the structure of a neighborhood is critical in averting public health disasters."

* Krumholz, Norman and John Forester; with a foreword by Alan A. Altshuler. Making equity planning work: leadership in the public sector. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.

* Leinberger, Christopher. The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2008.

* Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County almanac. With other essays on conservation from Round River. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.
"A classic set of essays on land use and the environment; especially the chapter entitled 'A Land Ethic'."

* Levine, Jonathan. Zoned Out: Regulation, Markets, and Choices in Transportation and Metropolitan Land Use. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2006.

* Logan, J.R. and H. L. Molotch. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

* Lynch, Kevin. The image of the city. 1st MIT Press pbk.ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964, c1960.
“40 years later, still a highly influential text that guides and inspires urban designers�

* Massey, Douglas and Nancy Denton. American Apartheid. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

* Mumford, Lewis. The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospect. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1st ed.1961.
“a classic from a giant among 20th Century urbanists: an intellectual bridge between Ebenezer Howard and Patrick Geddes from the past and the modern regionalists.�

* Orfield, Myron. American metropolitics: the new suburban reality. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. 2002.
“a leading voice in the call for greater regional/metropolitan equity between city and suburb.�

* Pollan, Michael. The omnivore’s dilemma : a natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.

* Rybczynski, Witold. City life: urban expectations in a new world. New York: Scribner. 1995.

* Sandercock, Leonie. Towards cosmopolis: planning for multicultural cities. John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
“explores how cosmopolitan cities responds to the economic, political and cultural demands and needs of so many diverse, and sometimes opposing groups.�

* Shatkin, Gavin. Collective Action and Urban Poverty Alleviation: Community Organizations and the Struggle for Shelter in Manila. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

* Sorkin, Michael. Variations on a theme park: the new American city and the end of public space. New York: Hill and Wang. 2nd ed 2002.
“a lively, accessible anthology on postmodern urban America and the privatization of public space.�

* Sugrue, Thomas J. The origins of the urban crisis: race and inequality in postwar Detroit. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c1996.
“a modern classic and a compelling read on the decline of Detroit and the connection between segregation, housing markets and workplaces�

* Thomas, June Manning. Redevelopment and race: planning a finer city in postwar Detroit. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, c1997.

* Wilson, William J. When work disappears: the world of the new urban poor. New York: Knopf: Distributed by Random House Inc. 1996.