Best Urban Planning and Development Books
Here you will get Best Urban Planning and Development Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Author: by Richard Rothstein
1631494538
Liveright
English
New York Times Bestseller Notable Book of the Year Editors’ Choice Selection One of Bill Gates’ Amazing Books of the Year One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Best Books of the Year Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Hillman Prize for Nonfiction Gold Winner California Book Award (Nonfiction) Finalist Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History) Finalist Brooklyn Public Library Literary PrizeThis powerful and disturbing history exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review).
Widely heralded as a masterful (Washington Post) and essential (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation (William Julius Wilson).
Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods.
2. Discrimination and Disparities
Author: by Thomas Sowell
Basic Books
English
320 pages
An enlarged edition of Thomas Sowell’s brilliant examination of the origins of economic disparitiesEconomic and other outcomes differ vastly among individuals, groups, and nations. Many explanations have been offered for the differences. Some believe that those with less fortunate outcomes are victims of genetics.
Others believe that those who are less fortunate are victims of the more fortunate. Discrimination and Disparities gathers a wide array of empirical evidence to challenge the idea that different economic outcomes can be explained by any one factor, be it discrimination, exploitation, or genetics.
This revised and enlarged edition also analyzes the human consequences of the prevailing social vision of these disparities and the policies based on that vision-from educational disasters to widespread crime and violence.
3. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Author: by Robert A. Caro
Vintage
English
1344 pages
Everywhere acknowledged as a modern American classic, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and chosen by the Modern Library as one of the hundred greatest books of the twentieth century, The Power Broker is a huge and galvanizing biography revealing not only the saga of one man’s incredible accumulation of power, but the story of the shaping (and mis-shaping) of New York in the twentieth century.
Robert Caro’s monumental book makes public what few outsiders knew: that Robert Moses was the single most powerful man of his time in the City and in the State of New York. And in telling the Moses story, Caro both opens up to an unprecedented degree the way in which politics really happensthe way things really get done in America’s City Halls and Statehousesand brings to light a bonanza of vital information about such national figures as Alfred E.
Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the genesis of their blood feud), about Fiorello La Guardia, John V. Lindsay and Nelson Rockefeller. But The Power Broker is first and foremost a brilliant multidimensional portrait of a manan extraordinary man who, denied power within the normal framework of the democratic process, stepped outside that framework to grasp power sufficient to shape a great city and to hold sway over the very texture of millions of lives.
4. THE LAST DAYS OF NEW YORK: a reporter's true tale
Author: by Seth Barron
English
304 pages
1630061875
Seth Barron has covered New York for a very long time. He has a new book The Last Days of New York. The title says it all. TUCKER CARLSON “A must read. BRIAN KILMEADE, host of Fox & Friends “In this gripping new book, Seth Barron warns the city may not recover from the preening, disastrous incompetence of Mayor de Blasio.” RAY KELLY, Police Commissioner of New York City “Barron cuts through the noise and provides a devastating account of a city’s decline under the delusional leadership of socialists and con men.
GREG KELLY, host of Newsmax Greg Kelly Reports BILL DE BLASIO SET THE STAGE FOR THE RUIN OF NEW YORK CITY THE LAST DAYS OF NEW YORK: a reporter’s true tale tells the story of how a corrupted political system hollowed out New York City, leaving it especially vulnerable, all in the name of equity and fairness.
When, in the future, people ask how New York City fell to pieces, they can be toldquoting Hemingwaygradually, then suddenly. New Yorkers awoke from a slumber of ease and prosperity to discover that their glorious city was not only unprepared for crisis, but that the underpinnings of its fortune had been gutted by the reckless mismanagement of Bill de Blasio and the progressive political machine that elevated him to power.
5. The 48 Laws of Black Empowerment
Author: by Dante Fortson
English
70 pages
1728734312
The 48 Laws of Power was written by Robert Greene and first published in 1998. It is often praised as one of the best books to read if you want to get ahead in life. This got me to thinking, why isn’t there anything like this for our community?
We have a lot of people talking about what we need to do, what we should do, and what we could do as a community, but nothing con-crete that we could all sit down with, learn from, and relate to on an individual level.
The 48 Laws of Black Empowerment was written to bridge the gap between individual action and a united black community. This book is broken down into six areas of importance to the black community.1.Personal2.Family3.Finance4.Community5.Philanthropy6. ActivismWorking to individually improve ourselves in these areas will automati-cally result in a shift in black community consciousness.
While The 48 Laws of Power is a great book, it just wasn’t written with our community or needs in mind. The 48 Laws of Black Empowerment is about cultivating success in business and life, while also helping our friends, family and community succeed with us.
6. WALKABLE CITY: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
Author: by Jeff Speck
English
320 pages
0865477728
“Timely and important, a delightful, insightful, irreverent work … Should be required reading.” The Christian Science MonitorA Best Book of the Year according to Planetizen and the American Society of Landscape Architects Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive.
And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. Making downtown into a walkable, viable community is the essential fix for thetypical American city; it is eminently achievable and its benefits are manifold. Walk-able Citybursting with sharp observations and key insights into how urban changehappenslays out a practical, necessary, and inspiring vision for how to make Americancities great again.
7. The Swamp Peddlers: How Lot Sellers, Land Scammers, and Retirees Built Modern Florida and Transformed the American Dream
Author: by Jason Vuic
English
272 pages
1469663333
Florida has long been a beacon for retirees, but for many, the American dream of owning a home there was a fantasy. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called installment land sales industry hawked billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners.
For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded home site that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result was Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others-sprawling communities with no downtowns, little industry, and millions of residential lots.
In The Swamp Peddlers, Jason Vuic tells the raucous tale of the sale of residential lots in postwar Florida. Initially selling cheap homes to retirees with disposable income, by the mid-1950s developers realized that they could make more money selling parcels of land on installment to their customers.
8. Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind's Greatest Invention
Author: by Ben Wilson
Doubleday
English
464 pages
From a brilliant young historian, a colorful journey through 7,000 years and twenty-six world cities that shows how urban living has been the spur and incubator to humankind’s greatest innovations. In the two hundred millennia of our existence, nothing has shaped us more profoundly than the city.
Historian Ben Wilson, author of bestselling and award-winning books on British history, now tells the grand, glorious story of how city living has allowed human culture to flourish. Beginning with Uruk, the world’s first city, dating to 5000 BC and memorably portrayed in the Epic of Gilgamesh, he shows us that cities were never a necessity but that once they existed their density created such a blossoming of human endeavor-producing new professions, forms of art, worship, and trade-that they kick-started nothing less than civilization.
Guiding readers through famous cities over 7,000 years, he reveals the innovations driven by each: civics in the agora of Athens, global trade in ninth-century Baghdad, finance in the coffeehouses of London, domestic comforts in the heart of Amsterdam, peacocking in Belle Epoque Paris.
9. The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America
Author: by Lawrence T. Brown
English
384 pages
1421439875
How can American cities promote racial equity, end redlining, and reverse the damaging health- and wealth-related effects of segregation? The world gasped in April 2015 as Baltimore erupted and Black Lives Matter activists, incensed by Freddie Gray’s brutal death in police custody, shut down highways and marched on city streets.
In The Black Butterflya reference to the fact that Baltimore’s majority-Black population spreads out on both sides of the coveted strip of real estate running down the center of the city like a butterfly’s wingsLawrence T. Brown reveals that ongoing historical trauma caused by a combination of policies, practices, systems, and budgets is at the root of uprisings and crises in hypersegregated cities around the country.
Putting Baltimore under a microscope, Brown looks closely at the causes of segregation, many of which exist in current legislation and regulatory policy despite the common belief that overtly racist policies are a thing of the past. Drawing on social science research, policy analysis, and archival materials, Brown reveals the long history of racial segregation’s impact on health, from toxic pollution to police brutality.
10. Soft City: Building Density for Everyday Life
Author: by David Sim
Island Press
English
256 pages
Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life.
How do we move from the current reality in most citesseparated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resourcesto support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe.
He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions.
11. Professional Real Estate Development: The ULI Guide to the Business
Author: by Richard B. Peiser
Urban Land Institute
English
400 pages
This classic covers the basics of developing all types of real estate, including multifamily, office, retail, and industrial projects. It includes numerous case studies of actual projects and many small-scale examples.
12. The Works: Anatomy of a City
Author: by Kate Ascher
Penguin Books
English
228 pages
A fascinating guided tour of the ways things work in a modern cityIt’s a rare person who won’t find something of interest in The Works, whether it’s an explanation of how a street-sweeper works or the view of what’s down a manhole.
New York Post Have you ever wondered how the water in your faucet gets there? Where your garbage goes? What the pipes under city streets do? How bananas from Ecuador get to your local market? Why radiators in apartment buildings clang?
Using New York City as its point of reference, The Works takes readers down manholes and behind the scenes to explain exactly how an urban infrastructure operates. Deftly weaving text and graphics, author Kate Ascher explores the systems that manage water, traffic, sewage and garbage, subways, electricity, mail, and much more.
Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, The Works gives readers a unique glimpse at what lies behind and beneath urban life in the twenty-first century.
13. The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (and Keeping it There)
Author: by Shane Phillips
English
280 pages
1642831336
From Los Angeles to Boston and Chicago to Miami, US cities are struggling to address the twin crises of high housing costs and household instability. Debates over the appropriate course of action have been defined by two poles: building more housing or enacting stronger tenant protections.
These options are often treated as mutually exclusive, with support for one implying opposition to the other. Shane Phillips believes that effectively tackling the housing crisis requires that cities support both tenant protections and housing abundance. He offers readers more than 50 policy recommendations, beginning with a set of principles and general recommendations that should apply to all housing policy.
The remaining recommendations are organized by what he calls the Three S’s of Supply, Stability, and Subsidy. Phillips makes a moral and economic case for why each is essential and recommendations for making them work together. There is no single solution to the housing crisisit will require a comprehensive approach backed by strong, diverse coalitions.
14. The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Author: by Jane Jacobs
B01HWKSBDI
Vintage
July 20, 2016
Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as “perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning…. [It] can also be seen in a much larger context.
It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book’s arguments.” Jane Jacobs, an editor and writer on architecture in New York City in the early sixties, argued that urban diversity and vitality were being destroyed by powerful architects and city planners.
Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs’s small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. The author has written a new foreword for this Modern Library edition.
15. Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places Can Transform America's Cities
Author: by Ken Bernstein
English
224 pages
162640075X
Ken Bernstein, a Principal City Planner for the City of Los Angeles and a national advocate for historic preservation shares how Los Angeles has led the nation in historic preservation and how other cities can do the same with his Los Angeles Times bestseller.
Los Angeles has an image as the ? City of the Future?? A city always at the cutting edge of change?But also as a ? Throwaway metropolis? That cares little about its history or architectural legacy. Yet the reality is quite different.
Over the past decade, the City of Los Angeles has developed one of the most successful historic preservation programs in the nation, culminating with the completion of the nation? S most ambitious citywide survey of historic resources. All across the city, historic preservation is now transforming Los Angeles, while also pointing the way to how other cities can use preservation to revitalize their neighborhoods and build community.
Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places Can Transform America? S Cities, authored by Ken Bernstein, who oversees Los Angeles? Office of Historic Resources, tells this under-appreciated L.A. Story: how historic preservation has been transforming neighborhoods, creating a Downtown renaissance, and guiding the future of the city.
16. Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
Author: by Charles Montgomery
FSG Adult
English
368 pages
A globe-trotting, eye-opening exploration of how cities canand domake us happier peopleCharles Montgomery’s Happy City is revolutionizing the way we think about urban life. After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time.
But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and condo towers an improvement on the car dependence of the suburbs? The award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness, during an exhilarating journey through some of the world’s most dynamic cities.
He meets the visionary mayor who introduced a “sexy” bus to ease status anxiety in Bogot; the architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the activist who turned Paris’s urban freeways into beaches; and an army of American suburbanites who have hacked the design of their own streets and neighborhoods.
