Communities Books - Page 23

A Concise Guide to Community Planning

Gerald A. Porterfield, Kenneth B. Hall

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Urban Planning & Development -> General

Editorial Review:

Once an ad hoc, informal process, community planning has now become a demanding discipline that gathers together architects, landscape architects, developers, and civil engineers. In this concise, easy-to-use handbook, readers will get a clear overview of land development issues--plus dozens of job-tested design strategies and illuminating real case examples. From environmental impact to traffic congestion, from specialized demographic needs of the elderly and handicapped to proven ``rules of thumb'' in residential development, the book is packed with the do's and dont's of effective community planning.

Building the collaborative community: Mobilizing citizens for action

Eva Schindler-Rainman

By: University of California Extension Amazon Marketplace: 1 new & used starting at $8.65

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Industrial and Business Space Development: Implementation and urban renewal

C. Marsh

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Editorial Review:

Over the last decade, British industry has gone through a painful period of restructuring, and urban regeneration has become a major political priority. This essentially practical book assesses the changing nature of the industrial and business based property market which has developed out of the recession of the early 1980s. The book shows how business based development schemes can be initiated and implemented to revitalise urban areas. It covers the investment and development market, how schemes are financed and the different techniques used to appraise their financial viability, layout and design of industrial, workshop and business space developments of all sizes, influences of central government policies, etc

The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age, 1860-1920 (American History Series)

Raymond A. Mohl

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Editorial Review:

The process by which the United States grew from small colonial settlements to a highly industrialized and urban nation is a central theme in American history. The New City describes the transformations of urban America in the industrial era, a crucial period in which the city came to dominate the economic and social landscape.

St.clair

Anthony Wallace

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

St. Claire 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book is lucid, engaging and compriehensive, covering the spectrum between personal and statistical information interleaved with philosophical perspective. I couldn't recommend it more highly!

Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census

Tertius Chandler

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A Guide to Smart Growth : Shattering Myths, Providing Solutions

Jane S. Shaw, Ronald D. Utt

List Price: $12.95 By: Heritage Foundation Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $3.85

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Follow the money.. 1 out of 5 stars.
22 of 24 people found this review helpful.

A bit of disclosure here for those too lazy to read the fine print. If you think 'A Guide to Smart Growth' is an unbiased look at the issues surrounding urban sprawl and the 'Smart Growth' movement, think again.

This 'book' is published by the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank whose dogma is vehemently preached by such conservative spinmeisters as Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. The author, Jane S. Shaw, is a Senior Associate at PERC, the Political Economic Research Center, whose board of directors is composed of investment bankers, developers, venture capitalists, and members of the financial press.

That being said, I suspect there's more than a little conflict of interest here, considering the very interests that benefit from pro-sprawl development policies are the publishers and promoters of this book. Naturally its filled with questionable statistics by such pro-sprawl cheerleaders like Wendell Cox, who is well known in the urban planning community as vocal opponent of 'Smart Growth' and 'New Urbanism'.

By all means read this book to learn about the arguments of those who wish to destory the 'Smart Growth' and 'New Urbanism' movements. Just don't look for solutions, as their goal is to maintain the status quo, not to support responsible, sustainable alternatives to the suburban growth machine.

Editorial Review:

During the last half of the 20th Century the pursuit of the American Dream includes the quest for open space. The result is the suburbanization of America as people leave the city for the fresh air and better schools as well as less traffic and fewer people. Editors Jane Shaw and Ron Utt examine the public policy implications of America's race to the suburbs. Full chapters are devoted to issues such as zoning law reform, traffic congestion and the free market vs. government solutions to suburban sprawl. Also included are in-depth analyses of the lessons learned from smart growth initiatives in Atlanta and Portland.

Picture Windows: How The Suburbs Happened

Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, Elizabeth Ewen

List Price: $27.50 By: Basic Books Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $1.12

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Editorial Review:

This fascinating study of the suburbs of Long Island, New York (and by analogy, those across America) arose from the authors' daily commute from Manhattan to SUNY Old Westbury, which is near Levittown, one of the earliest and perhaps the most famous of American suburbs. Initially they had imagined suburbia "as an anaesthetized state of mind, a no place dominated by a culture of conformity and consumption." Their research quickly taught them otherwise. While Picture Windows does document a growing obsession with middle-class consumer goods, like the televisions that came with 1950 houses at Levittown, it disrupts the myth of suburban serenity to reveal "a rich and stormy history" of political and social conflict. The planners and visionaries of suburbia, as the authors attest, tried to create a place "where ordinary people, not just the elite, would have access to affordable, attractive modern housing in communities with parks, gardens, recreation, stores, and cooperative town meeting places." Shunning the "snobbery" of cultural critics who deplored the "neat little toy houses on their neat little patches of lawn," Baxandall and Ewen find much to celebrate in the burgeoning suburbs. Most of those who flocked to the new towns had been crowded into city slums during the depression and war; they never questioned the architectural conformity of the suburbs, but only rejoiced in the chance of owning their own brand-new homes, places empty of anyone else's memories and rich with potential. Picture Windows is a quintessentially American story, told with skill and conviction. --Regina Marler

Designing the City: A Guide for Advocates and Public Officials

Adele Fleet Bacow

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Editorial Review:

Written in a clear and engaging style, Designing the City is a practical manual for improving the way communities are planned, designed, and built. It presents a wealth of information on design and decision-making, including advice on how citizens and activists can make their voices heard, and numerous examples of effective strategies for working with all parties involved in neighborhood and community development. It highlights proven models and strategies to help communities:

• establish unique and productive partnerships with public works and transportation departments
• develop resources through grant programs
• broaden expertise, perspective, and constituency
• create new and enduring models for effective action
• educate participants and consumers of the design and development process

Dialectical Urbanism

Andy Merrifield

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Editorial Review:

Life in the city can be both liberating and oppressive. The contemporary city is an arena in which new and unexpected personal identities and collective agencies are forged and at the same time the major focus of market forces intent on making all life a commodity. This book explores both sides of the urban experience, developing a perspective from which the contradictory nature of the politics of the city comes more clearly into view.

Dialectical Urbanism discusses a range of urban issues, conflicts and struggles through detailed case studies set in Liverpool, Baltimore, New York, and Los Angeles. Issues which affect the quality of everyday life in the citygentrification and development, affordable rents, the accountability of local government, the domination of the urban landscape by new corporate giants, policingare located in the context of larger political and economic forces. At the same time, the narrative constantly returns to those moments in which city dwellers discover and develop their capacity to challenge larger forces and decide their own conditions of life, becoming active citizens rather than the passive consumers.

Merrifield draws on a wide range of sourcesfrom interviews with activists and tenants fighting eviction to government and corporate reportsand uncovers surprising connections, for example, between the rise of junk bonds in the 1980s and urban improvement schemes in a working-class neighborhood in Baltimore. This lively and many-sided narrative is constantly informed by broader analyses and reflections on the city and engages with these analyses in turn. It fuses scholarship and political engagement into a powerful defense of the possibilities of life in the metropolis today.