“Call it ugly, call it beautiful, call it dysfunctional — but don’t call Los Angeles unplanned.” So begins a chapter titled “Challenging The Myth Of An Unplanned Los Angeles” in a new book out this week that you’ll definitely want…
There are an estimated 600,000,000 passenger cars in the world, and that number is increasing every day. So, too, is Earth’s supply of parking spaces. In some cities, parking lots cover more than one-third of the metropolitan footprint. It’s official:…
The Great American Dream of cruising down the parkway, zipping from here to there at any time has given way to a true nightmare that is destroying the environment, costing billions and deeply impacting our personal well-being. Jeffrey Tumlin’s new…
Carleton K. Montgomery’s Regional Planning for a Sustainable America is the first book to represent the great variety of today’s effective regional planning programs, analyzing dozens of regional initiatives across North America. The American landscape is being transformed by poorly…
In the gorgeous new book titled Urban Transformation: Transit Oriented Development And The Sustainable City, authors Ronald A. Altoon and James C. Auld address the intersections of values, issues and priorities of public and private sector partners in creating positive civic…
In No More Play: Conversations on Urban Speculation in Los Angeles and Beyond, American architect Michael Maltzan traces the transformations that have taken place in the city of Los Angeles since the early 1990s. This is a beautifully produced book full…
Today’s urban resident is seeking a more flexible, sustainable environment — representing a unique, diverse, vibrant and responsible way of living — as an alternative to the typical development patterns of suburban and semi-urban sprawl. Can urban design help create…
In the American city, property rights involve not one but numerous stakeholders, some connected to the parcel by title and others through less formal arrangements, whether political, economic, or cultural. Negotiations between these stakeholders over the use of property are…
A notable new title about Los Angeles’ struggles with oil drilling, air pollution, flooding, and water and power supplies exposes the clout business has had over government. In How Local Politics Shape Federal Policy: Business, Power, And The Environment In…
Last year, author and Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones spoke to an Atlanta audience on the topic of “retrofitting suburbia,” delivering a riveting 20-minute TED Talk, one of the first for that website. Her landmark work on this subject, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions…
