The Freedoms of Suburbia Review

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The Freedoms of Suburbia ReviewI'm hard at work studying traffic congestion for a book I'm writing, and that has led me into the field of urban and transportation planning in the US and Europe. An early review led me to buy Paul Barker's new book, The Freedoms of Suburbia, an excellent and delightful view of urban and suburban life in the UK from about 1850 to the present. The quality of writing is sufficiently good that I found it hard to remember my original objections to his arguments and positions. There's grace, humor, eloquence and a wonderful tolerance and sensitivity to the concept of "quality of life" and what it means and offers to various social and economic groups. Along with the great prose are dozens of gorgeous and quite moving photographs illuminating his writing. Barker's sympathies lie with the middle class who settle in the semi-detached houses with gardens that are so central to the English middle-class sensibility, while he gently chides the architects who build elegant urban housing projects that look great from the air but are just about unlivable when you get into them on the ground. An excellent and beautifully produced book that transcends its dreary topic.The Freedoms of Suburbia Overview"Suburban" is regularly used as a dismissive rather than a descriptive term, especially by architects and planners. And yet, judging by the sheer number of people who move there, suburbia must be doing something right. It is best to understand, Paul Barker writes, before rushing to condemn. Suburbs are an essential part of every city; quite often, the most vigorous and innovative part. Here, Barker leads an entertaining journey through Britain's 'burbs: a white witch living in a Croydon semi-detached; a high-rise block being razed; the hidden charms of the modern planned community of Milton Keynes; seaside bungalows and strip malls on the edge of town. With a keen eye for detail, Barker paints a humane yet provocative portrait of 21st-century living. And he throws down a gauntlet to anyone thinking about the future of cities, towns, and countryside, arguing persuasively that what is needed is less planning, not more.

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City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch Review

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City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch ReviewThis is THE BOOK for anyone -not exclusively urban planners- who wants to understand not only the physical form of the city, but how its citizens interact with the urban landscape. Through his experience and observation, Lynch reminds us that the most important component of a city -the reason why they are built- are its inhabitants.City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch OverviewKevin Lynch's books are the classic underpinnings of modern urbanplanning and design, yet they are only a part of his rich legacy of ideas abouthuman purposes and values in built form. City Sense and City Design brings togetherLynch's remaining work, including professional design and planning projects thatshow how he translated many of his ideas and theories into practice. An invaluablesourcebook of design knowledge, City Sense and City Design completes the record ofone of the foremost environmental design theorists of our time and leads to a deeperunderstanding of his distinctively humanistic philosophy.The editors, both formerstudents of Lynch, provide a cogent summary of his career and of the role he playedin shaping and transforming the American urban design profession during the 1950s,the 1960s, and the 1970s. Each of the seven thematic groupings of writings andprojects that follow begins with a short introduction explaining their content andtheir background.The essays in part I focus on the premises of Lynch's work: hisnovel reading of large-scale built environments and the notion that the design of anurban landscape should be as meaningful and intimate as the natural landscape. Inpart II, excerpts from Lynch's travel journals reveal his early ideas on how peopleperceive and interpret their surroundings--ideas that culminated in his seminalwork, The Image of the City. This part of the book also presents Lynch's experimentswith children and his assessment of environmental-perception research. The examplesof both small-scale and large-scale analysis of visual form in part III are followedby three parts on city design. These include Lynch's more theoretical works oncomplex planning decisions involving both functional (spatial and structuralorganization) and normative (how the city works in human terms) approaches, articlesdiscussing the principles that guided Lynch's teaching and practice of city design,and descriptions of Lynch's own projects in the Boston area and elsewhere.The bookconcludes with essays written late in Lynch's career, fantasy pieces describingutopias and offering new design freedoms and scenarios warning of horrifying"cacotopias."

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The Urban Pattern, 6th Edition Review

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The Urban Pattern, 6th Edition ReviewI read this book during my urban planning project in school, and it's very useful for urban planners and architects! This book gave me all the informations I need in urban planning.The Urban Pattern, 6th Edition OverviewFor more than forty years this text has been educating students about the history of city planning and its contemporary practice. The sixth edition brings students up-to-date with new coverage of computer modeling, the new exurbia and megalopolis, seismic issues, hazardous waste, development vs. no growth, environmental concerns, and participatory planning.

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Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment Review

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Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment ReviewAltschuler and Luberoff provide an in-depth analysis of urban mega-projects focusing on three major categories: highways, airports, and rail transit. They preface their treatment a first-rate discussion and analysis of the theoretical framework and evolving political context in which urban mega-projects are undertaken. In this sense, the book is invaluable for those persons in the project management sector who need to be able to deal with the politics of their own projects (despite the ongoing belief among students that politics are irrelevant to project success). The real driver of these projects is the demand for economic growth and prosperity by important political constituencies, particularly the business communities of these various cities, but also other groups (including neighborhoods and other local institutions) that are interested in promoting prosperity as well. The discussion here is balanced, thoughtful, informed and astute.
The authors detail the era of carte-blanche and laissez-faire mega projects which lasted into the late 1960s, only to be confronted with resistance to groups (such as neighborhoods and environmentalists) that had heretofore been shut own, silenced, or overlooked. They treat the seventies, eighties and nineties as a time of retrenchment, and see the present era as one in which mega-projects will continue to drive forward in specific areas, but in which they will also be far more limited in scope than in the preceding years. They note the constraining force of the "do no harm" doctrine, and detail how this doctrine--promulgated as a consequence of the excesses of the mega-projects of the sixties, when neighborhood and environmental impacts were hardly ever considered (e.g., the ill-fated Jones Falls Expressway in Baltimore, which the book does not mention)--is being implemented in projects such as the Federal government's reconstruction and expansion of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on Washington DC's southern edge.
The book ends with an analysis of the long-term impact of the legal retrenchment against mega-projects that occurred during the sixties, and its authors, while sympathetic with the democratic political tendencies generated by the opposition to these projecs, concludes that legitimate objections can still stop projects. Simple use of delaying tactics will not work, and projects will advance against such opposition, though far more slowly and with greatly increased costs.
Their discussion of regime politics is especially important, and provides and essential caveat for any serious professional or activist seeking to halt a politically advanced, though publicly deleterious project.Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment OverviewIn "Mega-Projects", Altshuler and Luberoff examine the forces that gave rise to a great wave of urban mega-projects in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, that broke this wave in the years around 1970 and that have shaped a new generation of such projects in the decades since. While focusing principally on transportation mega-projects such as Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel project (the "Big Dig"), the Denver International Airport and the Los Angeles subway, they consider as well the scores of new stadiums, arenas and convention centres built (mainly at public expense) in recent years. "Mega-Projects" includes narratives of both national policy-making and local mobilization to bring about highway, airport, rail-transit and downtown revitalization projects, particularly since the 1970s. The specific projects chronicled are drawn from numerous regions including Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland and Seattle. It also includes broad analyses, seeking to place the authors' findings in relation to leading theories of urban and American politics.

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Close-Up: How to Read the American City (Phoenix Book; P863) Review

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Close-Up: How to Read the American City (Phoenix Book; P863) ReviewClose-Up is a fun and friendly guide to thinking about American cities generically. With it you can begin to understand why cities look the way they do, why they are organized the way they, and ewhy they change the way they change. I have used this book teaching urban theory to both undergraduates and graduate students, and they have found it eye-opening; it made them see their city in a whole new way. The drawings are fun and informative. Though this book was written in 1973, which makes some of its examples dated, the insights it gives into urban form are not dated at all, and should be useful well into the 21st century.Close-Up: How to Read the American City (Phoenix Book; P863) Overview"Grady Clay looks hard at the landscape, finding out who built what and why, noticing who participates in a city's success and who gets left in a 'sink,' or depressed (often literally) area. Clay doesn't stay in the city; he looks at industrial towns, truck stops, suburbs—nearly anywhere people live or work. His style is witty and readable, and the book is crammed with illustrations that clarify his points. If I had to pick up one book to guide my observations of the American scene, this would be it."—Sonia Simone, Whole Earth Review"The emphasis on the informal aspects of city-shaping—topographical, historical, economic and social—does much to counteract the formalist approach to American urban design. Close-Up...should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand Americans and their cities."—Roger Cunliffe, Architectural Review"Close-Up is a provocative and stimulating book."—Thomas J. Schlereth, Winterthur Portfolio"Within this coherent string of essays, the urban dweller or observer, as well as the student, will find refreshing strategies for viewing the environmental 'situations' interacting to form a landscape."—Dallas Morning News"Clay's Close-Up, first published in 1973, is still a key book for looking at the real American city. Too many urban books and guidebooks concentrate on the good parts of the city....Clay looks at all parts of the city, the suburbs, and the places between cities, and develops new terms to describe parts of the built environment—fronts, strips, beats, stacks, sinks, and turf. No one who wants to understand American cities or to describe them, should fail to know this book. The illustrations are of special interest to the guidebook writer."—American Urban Guidenotes

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Land Development Handbook Review

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Land Development Handbook ReviewEver since I purchased this publication I can't stop using it. Every civil engineer should have this as part of their reference library, regardless of your area of specialty. It provides macro to micro scale explanations of general processes, design applications, etc in a very readable format. More times than I can remember I have looked to this book for an answer or at least for some guidance and was throuroughly satisfied. No it is not a definitive reference for civil engineers but its' breadth and usability overshadows any technical shortcomings. If I had to have just one reference book for my area of practice (general civil), this would be it. Yeah, yeah, the "Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers" is a more definitive reference, but I usually find out what I need in this pub.
ps - Almost everyone of my fellow employees that has used the book has purchased their own, find someone you know who has a copy and check it out for yourself.Land Development Handbook Overview
The Definitive Guide to Land Development-Every Detail, Every Issue, Every Setting

Land Development Handbook provides a step-by-step approach to any type of project, from rural greenfield development to suburban infill to urban redevelopment. With the latest information regarding green technologies and design, the book offers you a comprehensive look at the land-development process as a whole, as well as a thorough view of individual disciplines. Plus, a bonus color insert reveals the extent to which land development projects are transforming our communities!
This all-in-one guide provides in-depth coverage of:
Environmental issues from erosion and sediment control and stormwater management to current regulatory controls for plan approval, permitting, and green building certification
Comprehensive planning and zoning including new development models for mixed-use, transit-oriented, and conservation developments
Enhanced approaches to community and political consensus building
Technical design procedures for infrastructure components including roads and utilities with a new section on dry utilities
Surveying tools and techniques focusing on the use of GPS and GIS to collect, present, and preserve data throughout the design process
Plan preparation, submission, and processing with an emphasis on technologies available-from CAD modeling and design to electronic submissions, permit processing, and tracking

Subjects include:
Planning and zoning
Real Property Law
Engineering Feasibility
Environmental Regulations
Rezoning
Conceptual and Schematic Design
Development Patterns
Control, Boundary, and Topographical Surveys
Historic Assessment and Preservation
Street and Utility Design
Floodplain Studies
Grading and Earthwork
Water and Wastewater Treatment
Cost Estimating
Subdivision Process
Plan Submittals
Stormwater Management
Erosion and Sediment Control
And much more!


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