Planning & Management Books

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck

List Price: $35.00 By: North Point Press Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $6.75

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Suburban
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Urban
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 84 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A manifesto by America's most controversial and celebrated town planners, proposing an alternative model for community design.

There is a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and to replace the automobile-based settlement patterns of the past fifty years with a return to more traditional planning principles. This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day.

Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions.

All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life

Winona LaDuke

List Price: $40.00 By: South End Press Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $13.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> Regional Planning
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> Cultural
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A thoughtful and spirited account of indigenous people's resistance to environmental and cultural degradation by a Native American; Highly acclaimed author: Winner of the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998, Named 'Woman of the Year' by Ms. Magazine (along with the Indigo Girls) in 1997, Ran as the Vice Presidential candidate for the US Green Party in 1996, Listed in 'America's 50 Most Promising Leaders under 40' by Time Magazine in 1994; 'A brilliant, gripping narrative.' Ralph Nader; This eagerly awaited non-fiction debut by acclaimed Native environmental activist Winona LaDuke is a thoughtful and in-depth account of Native resistance to environmental and cultural degradation. LaDuke's unique understanding of Native ideas and people is borne from long years of experience, and is deepened by inspiring testimonies from local Native activists sharing the struggle for survival. LaDuke speaks forcefully for self-deterination and community. Hers is a beautiful and daring vision of spiritual and environmental transformation.

Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit

Al Gore

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Rodale Books Amazon Marketplace: 90 new & used starting at $1.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Government -> Public Policy
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

socialist/communist scare tactics 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 17 people found this review helpful.

Gore would have you believe that we (humans) are nothing more than parasites devouring the world and leaving only destruction in our wake. Well, I would like for you, Mr. Gore, to stop driving your car, stop flying everywhere, stop using ink and paper (this destroys trees you know), cease using the internet (no, you delusional twit you didn't invent it) and plugging in your slide projector that you charge $100,000 dollars to show (because this causes CO2 emissions and wastes precious energy) and all the other lovely inventions we parasites have so devastated this earth with. Also, you might want to rethink the thousands of dollars electric bill you get every month for that monstrosity of a house you live in (perhaps you should sell it and live in a tent in Uganda or somewhere that doesn't emit CO2...wait! we exhale it you moron!!) This planet is under attack from extremists who have admittedly over-exaggerated the truth (that means he/they lied and said outrightly that he/they lied GRIST magazine interview!!) so that they can dupe the American people (the vast majority won't even research this folly because they're too lazy) into electing officials who will legislate our basic freedoms from us. You want to get in your car and drive wherever...oops! sorry, you can only drive so many miles today (BAD for the environment you know!). You want to have more than two children...oops! sorry, no more than two because as everyone knows children are BAD for the environment!! You say you're married to a man that abuses you...oops! sorry, divorce is BAD for the environment...you have to stay with him. The theories (ALOT of maybes and probablies and perhaps...you know conjecture) that are used to substantiate these claims are flawed and hovers in the category of junk science. Gore is using these scare tactics to establish and promote his investment management group (Generation Investment Management) directly geared toward pilfering money from those naive enough to believe in this sham. He stands to make millions if not billions of dollars while watching the world crumble into chaos because of this idiotic plan. Carbon credits indeed...what hogwash!! Gore is a socialist/communist and would have America bow to his ideology so DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID!!!!!

Editorial Review:

Re-released on the heels of Al Gores #1 New York Times bestseller, An Inconvenient Truth, comes the paperback edition of his classic bestseller, Earth in the Balance. First published in 1992, it helped place the environment on the national agenda; now, as environmental issues move front-and-center in the public consciousness, the time is right to reflect deeply on the fate of our planet and commit ourselves to its future. While An Inconvenient Truth closely examines one menace to our environmentglobal warmingEarth in the Balance takes a broader approach, focusing on the threats that everyday choices pose to our climate, water, soil, and diversity of plant and animal life. A passionate, lifelong defender of the environment, Gore describesin brave and unforgettable termshow human actions and decisions can endanger or safeguard the vulnerable ecosystem that sustains us.

Global Environmental Governance: Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies (Foundations of Contemporary Environmental Studies Series)

James Gustave Speth, Peter Haas

Amazon Price: $17.95 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Island Press Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $15.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Natural Resources
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Today's most pressing environmental problems are planetary in scope, confounding the political will of any one nation. How can we solve them?



Global Environmental Governance offers the essential information, theory, and practical insight needed to tackle this critical challenge. It examines ten major environmental threats-climate disruption, biodiversity loss, acid rain, ozone depletion, deforestation, desertification, freshwater degradation and shortages, marine fisheries decline, toxic pollutants, and excess nitrogen-and explores how they can be addressed through treaties, governance regimes, and new forms of international cooperation.



Written by Gus Speth, one of the architects of the international environmental movement, and accomplished political scientist Peter M. Haas, Global Environmental Governance tells the story of how the community of nations, nongovernmental organizations, scientists, and multinational corporations have in recent decades created an unprecedented set of laws and institutions intended to help solve large-scale environmental problems. The book critically examines the serious shortcomings of current efforts and the underlying reasons why disturbing trends persist. It presents key concepts in international law and regime formation in simple, accessible language, and describes the current institutional landscape as well as lessons learned and new directions needed in international governance. Global Environmental Governance is a concise guide, with lists of key terms, study questions, and other features designed to help readers think about and understand the concepts discussed.

Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects (New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century)

Arun Agrawal

Amazon Price: $21.55 List Price: $23.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Duke University Press Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $15.45

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Natural Resources
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Sustainable Development
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Anthropology -> Cultural

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Kumaon in northern India, villagers set hundreds of forest fires in the early 1920s, protesting the colonial British state’s regulations to protect the environment. Yet by the 1990s, they had begun to conserve their forests carefully. In his innovative historical and political study, Arun Agrawal analyzes this striking transformation. He describes and explains the emergence of environmental identities and changes in state-locality relations and shows how the two are related. In so doing, he demonstrates that scholarship on common property, political ecology, and feminist environmentalism can be combined—in an approach he calls environmentality—to better understand changes in conservation efforts. Such an understanding is relevant far beyond Kumaon: local populations in more than fifty countries are engaged in similar efforts to protect their environmental resources.

Agrawal brings environment and development studies, new institutional economics, and Foucauldian theories of power and subjectivity to bear on his ethnographical and historical research. He visited nearly forty villages in Kumaon, where he assessed the state of village forests, interviewed hundreds of Kumaonis, and examined local records. Drawing on his extensive fieldwork and archival research, he shows how decentralization strategies change relations between states and localities, community decision makers and common residents, and individuals and the environment. In exploring these changes and their significance, Agrawal establishes that theories of environmental politics are enriched by attention to the interconnections between power, knowledge, institutions, and subjectivities.

Sustainability on Campus: Stories and Strategies for Change (Urban and Industrial Environments)

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The MIT Press Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $7.91

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Education -> College & University -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Education -> College & University -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Education -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

These personal narratives of greening college campuses offer inspiration, motivation, and practical advice. Written by faculty, staff, administrators, and a student, from varying perspectives and reflecting divergent experiences, these stories also map the growing strength of a national movement toward environmental responsibility on campus.

Environmental awareness on college and university campuses began with the celebratory consciousness-raising of Earth Day, 1970. Since then environmental action on campus has been both global (in research and policy formation) and local (in efforts to make specific environmental improvements on campuses). The stories in this book show that achieving environmental sustainability is not a matter of applying the formulas of risk management or engineering technology but part of what the editors call "the messy reality of participatory engagement in cultural transformation."

In Sustainability on Campus campus leaders recount inspiring stories of strategies that moved eighteen colleges and universities toward a more sustainable future. This book is for faculty, students, administrators, staff, and community partners, whether hesitant or committed, knowledgeable or newcomer. Scholars and activists have recognized the crucial role that higher education can play in the sustainability effort, and each chapter in the book is full of ideas about how to get started, revitalize efforts, and overcome roadblocks. Human and at times joyful, these stories illustrate many forms of leadership, in new courses and faculty development, green buildings and administrative policies, student programs, residential life, and collaborations with local communities.

From the Bottom Up: One Man's Crusade to Clean America's Rivers

Chad Pregracke, Jeff Barrow

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: National Geographic Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $1.07

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Urban Planning & Development -> Environmental Planning
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Conservation -> General
Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Conservation -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Chad Pregracke was a high school student when he first glimpsed the trash that littered the bottom of the Mississippi, a shocking sight that launched him on a quest to clean up the river. After four discouraging years seeking government help without success, he decided to take his fund-raising private—and a corporate sponsor decided to take a chance on this naive but unshakably determined young man.

Ten years later Chad's one-man project has grown into a $500,000 operation with more than 60 sponsors (including National Geographic). His work has been featured on national news and won numerous honors and accolades, but its grassroots, can-do spirit still thrives aboard the 135-foot barge that serves as home base for his organization, a floating environmental classroom, and an inspiration to people of all ages.

This is the story of his personal triumph as an advocate for America's rivers. Chad measures success in tons of garbage removed and thousands of people with a new stake in—and a new understanding of—the river environment. But From the Bottom Up is much more as well: a first-person chronicle of Chad's own life along the Mississippi featuring colorful characters, a near-death experience, a haunted swamp, and other flourishes worthy of a modern Mark Twain; and a fascinating portrait of the river itself which explores everything from the natural history of mussels and catfish to Indian lore to the key role of the Mississippi in our country's history.

Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000

Dolores Hayden

List Price: $26.00 By: Pantheon Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $5.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Gardening & Horticulture -> Landscape

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

For almost two centuries Americans have been moving to the suburbs in search of affordable
family housing, unspoiled nature, and small-town sociability—only to find that their leafy
new neighborhoods are part of the growing metropolitan sprawl. It is to this contested cultural landscape, where most Americans now live, that Dolores Hayden draws our attention.

From nineteenth-century utopian communities and elite picturesque enclaves to early twentieth-century streetcar subdivisions and owner-built tracts to the vast postwar sitcom suburbs and the subsidized malls and office parks that followed (on a scale that earlier builders could never have imagined), Hayden reveals the cultural and economic patterns that have brought us to the present. She explores the interplay of natural and built environments, the complex antagonisms between real-estate developers and suburban residents, the hidden role of federal government, and the religious and ideological overtones of the “American dream” embedded in the suburbs. Hayden asks hard questions about who has benefited from the suburban building process and about “smart” growth and “green” building. And she makes a strong case for the revitalization of existing neighborhoods in place of unchecked new growth on rural fringes.
Few readers will see our ubiquitous suburbs in the same way again.

Making Your Move to One of America's Best Small Towns: How to Find a Great Little Place as Your Next Home Base

Norman Crampton

Amazon Price: $17.95 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: M. Evans and Company, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 26 new & used starting at $2.03

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Natural Resources
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Real Estate -> Buying & Selling Homes
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> How-to & Home Improvements -> Household Hints

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Part of the story 3 out of 5 stars.
60 of 60 people found this review helpful.

This book is a good place to start if you're thinking of moving to a town of 15,000 or less. It will point you to many interesting communities. However, having used his previous book to guide my last move, and as a resident of one of the towns highlighted in this book (Grinnell), I can honestly say that data only carries you so far. Crampton could provide readers with a great benefit by lengthening the amount of description and flavor for each town. In particular, one key element missing is the 'dynamic' of a town: is it progressive? conservative? excited about education? quick to vote down taxes and bonds? These elements form the 'culture' of a small town, and believe me, the culture of a small town will be *very* important to you!

A good guide to start 3 out of 5 stars.
47 of 52 people found this review helpful.

As a resident of one of the 120 "best small towns" recommended by Norman Crampton, I was delighted to see Silver City on the list.

While Crampton's book is a good place to start your search for small town living, it is important to realize that each small town offers a unique personality. Some generalizations simply do not apply to Silver City. For example, it is not necessary to join a church (or country club) in order to fit in here. Even a small community like ours has diverse sub-populations: recent retirees, most of whom have some affinity for the arts; old-timers, most of whom are the conservative church-goers Crampton describes; and Hispanic families, many of whom have worked in the mines.

These groups rarely interact, although we usually get along very peacefully. We also have a number of folks who teach at the university -- and we rarely see them around town.

To learn about Silver city, you won't get much information from the Chamber of Commerce or the editor of the newspaper. You'd do better to spend some time hanging out at the AIR cafe, talking to whoever comes in. The morning and afternoon groups are quite different and everyone is friendly.

The author gives some nuts and bolts about each small town. Unfortunately, with the exception of weather, much of this information will change by the time the book is printed. And your decision may well be made by factors that can't be added up.

The best part of the book is the section on economics of small town living. Here, he's right on. You have to budget for travel to a large city now and then. Air travel will be more costly and you need time to drive to a large airport. His view of housing prices seems optimistic. If you move to a desirable city (such as Silver City) expect to pay more for a house than he allows.
And if you move to retire, your economic picture will be quite different. Many newcomers to Silver City are beginning a second career as an artist or writer. Moving without a job is scary -- and I do not recommend it unless you fit the profile I describe in my own book, Making the Big Move.

Editorial Review:

For those looking to raise a family in a storybook American town, or a change of pace from hectic city life, this book is the answer.

Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice

Paul Anastas, John Warner

List Price: $85.00 By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $49.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Bioengineering -> Biochemistry
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Chemical -> General
Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Chemical -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Seminal Work: The Principles of Green Chemistry 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This is the seminal reference on the widely invoked "12 Principles of Green Chemistry." This book is written by cofounders of the EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award,": a Synthetic Chemist and an expert in Environmental Policy. This book is unique in delivering a broad purview of industry practices as it pertains to the environment in a succinct manner. This is enabled by the distillation of the "12 Principles" which is an excellent organizing scheme. A key finding is the interdependency of the Principles and how they drive improved business performance for adopters.

"The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry" is invoked as a mantra for a revolution in the practice and methodologies of synthetic chemistry by research centers and innovators throughout the world. Driving even a few of these principles into practice has become a furtive source of product and process innovations in the field. The text is often cited in technical papers and thus a key reference book.

The narrative is accessible while providing rich examples ripe for follow-up investigation by technical readers.

As a technology strategist I highly recommend "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice" for its insight regarding the drivers of the future development of the chemical and materials industries.

Editorial Review:

This book provides the first introductory treatment of the design, development, and evaluation processes central to Green Chemistry. A comprehensive textbook, it takes a broad view of the subject and integrates a wide variety of approaches. Topics include alternative feedstocks, environmentally benign syntheses, the design of safer chemical products, new reaction conditions, alternative solvents and catalyst development, and the use of biosynthesis and biomimetic principles. It introduces new evaluation processes that encompass the complete health and environmental impact of a synthesis, from the choice of starting materials to the final product. Throughout, the text provides specific examples which compare the new methods with classical ones.