Download or read book The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths written by Randal O'Toole and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths written by Randal O'Toole and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Limitless City written by Oliver Gillham and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2002-03 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great debates of our time concerns the predominant form of land use in America today -- the all too familiar pattern of commercial and residential development known as sprawl. But what do we really know about sprawl? Do we know what it is? Where did it come from? Is it really so bad? If so, what are the alternatives? Can anything be done to make it better? The Limitless City offers an accessible examination of those and related questions. Oliver Gillham, an architect and planner with more than twenty-five years of experience in the field, considers the history and development of sprawl and examines current debates about the issue. The book: offers a comprehensive definition of sprawl in America traces the roots of sprawl and considers the factors that led to its preeminence as an urban and suburban form reviews both its negative impacts (loss of open space, increased pollution, gridlock) as well as its positive aspects (economic development, personal freedom, privacy) considers responses to sprawl including "smart growth," urban growth boundaries, regional planning, and the New Urbanism looks at what can be done to improve and counterbalance sprawl The author argues that whether we like it or not, sprawl is here to stay, and only by understanding where it came from and why it developed will we be able to successfully address the problems it has created and is likely to create in the future. The Limitless City is the first book to provide a realistic look at sprawl, with a frank recognition of its status as the predominant urban form in America, now and into the near future. Rather than railing against it, Gillham charts its probable future course while describing critical efforts that can be undertaken to improve the future of sprawl and our existing urban core areas.
Download or read book Sprawl And Suburbia written by William S. Saunders and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sprawl is the single most significant and urgent issue in American land use at the turn of the twenty-first century. Efforts to limit and reform sprawl through legislative “Smart Growth” initiatives have been enacted around the country while the neotraditionalist New Urbanism has been embraced by many architects and urban planners. Yet most Americans persist in their desire to live farther and farther away from urban centers, moving to exurbs made up almost entirely of single-family residential houses and stand-alone shopping areas. Sprawl and Suburbia brings together some of the foremost thinkers in the field to present in-depth diagnosis and critical analysis of the physical and social realities of exurban sprawl. Along with an introduction by Robert Fishman, these essays call for architects, urban planners, and landscape designers to work at mitigating the impact of sprawl on land and resources and improving the residential and commercial built environment as a whole. In place of vast residential exurbs, these writers offer visions of a fresh urbanism—appealing and persuasive models of life at greater density, with greater diversity, and within genuine communities. With sprawl losing the support of suburban citizens themselves as economic, environmental, and social costs are being paid, Sprawl and Suburbia appears at a moment when design might achieve some critical influence over development—if architects and planners accept the challenge. Contributors: Mike Davis, Ellen Dunham-Jones, Peter Hall, David Harvey, Jerold S. Kayden, Matthew J. Kiefer, Alex Krieger, Andrew Ross, James S. Russell, Mitchell Schwarzer. William S. Saunders is editor of Harvard Design Magazine and assistant dean for external relations at the Harvard Design School. He is the author of Modern Architecture: Photographs by Ezra Stoller. Robert Fishman is professor of architecture and urban planning at the Taubman College of Architecture, University of Michigan. He is author of Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia and editor of The American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of the City written by Roger W. Caves and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-03-01 with total page 597 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of the City focuses on the key topics encountered by undergraduates and scholars in urban studies and allied fields. Contributors include major theoreticians and practitioners, and on other individuals, groups, and organizations which study the city or practice in a field that directly or indirectly affects the city, the Encyclopedia necessarily adopts an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspective. A solid but also provocative starting point for wider exploration of the city, this is a first-class work of reference that will be an essential resource for independent study as well as a useful aid in teaching.
Download or read book Dead End written by Benjamin Ross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A witty, readable, and highly original tour through the history of America's suburbs and cities to uncover the human impulses that keep sprawl spreading
Download or read book Urban Legends written by Ngaire E. Genge and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-06-09 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Legends is a remarkably complete collection of the modern myths that make the rounds in offices, college dorms, and every other place where people tell the stories that spring from our deepest fears and fascinations. Every culture has its folktales including ours. Except, instead of involving gods and goddesses or princes and princesses, ours involve "some guy my sister's best friend knows" or "someone who woke up in a motel room." They happened, supposedly, to real people, usually recently, in a particular place. And they touch the most sensitive nerves of our psyches with ironic twists, gross-out shocks, and moral lessons learned the hard way. From the classic tale "The Mexican Pet" in which the "dog" turns out to be no Chihuahua to the more unappetizing story of condoms as fast-food burger garnish, from surgically skilled kidney thieves to sexual experiments that end in the emergency room, Urban Legends relates more 300 of the most enticing, macabre, and unforgettable tales. Expertly told, they are arranged in such chapters as "Crazy Little Thang Called Sex," "Oh, Scare Me," "Campus Capers," "Corporate Convolutions," and "So Much For Comfort Food." Fascinating, chilling, and occasionally repulsive, Urban Legends has all your favorites and hundreds more.
Download or read book Baby on the Car Roof and 222 More Urban Legends written by Thomas J. Craughwell and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2000-09-15 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Absolutely true stories that happened to a friend...of a friend...of a friend.
Download or read book New Geographies of the American West written by William Riebsame Travis and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2007-05-11 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reconciling explosive growth with often majestic landscape defines New Geographies of the American West. Geographer William Travis examines contemporary land use changes and development patterns from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and assesses the ecological and social outcomes of Western development. Unlike previous "boom" periods dependent on oil or gold, the modern population explosion in the West reflects a sustained passion for living in this specific landscape. But the encroaching exurbs, ranchettes, and ski resorts are slicing away at the very environment that Westerners cherish. Efforts to manage growth in the West are usually stymied at the state and local levels. Is it possible to improve development patterns within the West's traditional anti-planning, pro-growth milieu, or is a new model needed? Can the region develop sustainably, protecting and managing its defining wildness, while benefiting from it, too? Travis takes up the challenge , suggesting that functional and attractive settlement can be embedded in preserved lands, working landscapes, and healthy ecologies.
Download or read book The Best laid Plans written by Randal O'Toole and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2007 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on 30 years of experience reviewing hundreds of government plans, Randal O'Toole shows that, thanks to government planners, American cities are choked with congestion, major American housing markets have become unaf-fordable, and the cost of government infrastructure is spiraling out of control. The book makes the case for repeal of federal planning laws and closure of gov-ernment planning offices. Every American who worries about the insidious growth of the Nanny State must read this book.
Download or read book A Richer Heritage written by Robert E. Stipe and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveying the past, present and future of historic preservation in America, this text features 15 essays by some of the most eminent voices in the field, essays which highlight the principle ideas and events that have shaped and continue to shape the movement.
Download or read book Curses Broiled Again written by Jan Harold Brunvand and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1990-08-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the master folklorist and sly wit, Jan Brunvand, comes a collection of all-new urban legends. Did your cousin's wife's dentist's daughter go to the tanning parlor once too often and had her insides cooked? Has your husband's brother's nephew teacher try to make a dead rabbit look alive? If so, you've heard—or you yourself may have told—two of the seventy-plus legends in this collection. Urban legends are "those bizarre but believable stories about batter-fried rats, spiders in hairdos, Cabbage Patch dolls that get funerals, and the like that pass by word of mouth as being the gospel truth." But of course, though often told as having happened to a FOAF (friend of a friend), they aren't true. Included in this collection are legends about sex, horror, cars, business, and academia. Among them are "The Bible Student's Exam," "The Pregnant Shoplifter," "The Ice Cream Cone Caper," "Don't Mess with Texas," and "Mrs. Fields' Cookie Recipe."
Download or read book Last Harvest written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of "Home" and "A Clearing in the Distance" tells the compelling story of the transformation of a Pennsylvania cornfield into a neotraditional housing development--taking the reader on a revelatory inside tour of real estate in America.
Download or read book In All Fairness written by Richard A. Epstein and published by Independent Institute. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing concern about inequality has led to proposals to remake American society according to ill-conceived and coercive "egalitarian" values that are fundamentally unfair. This unique book reveals the modern romance with equality as a destructive flirtation. The elites who advocate such notions claim they champion the poor—but more often than not the nostrums of this managerial class undermine, rather than advance, mass prosperity and human well-being. The authors of In All Fairness challenge all of the prevailing egalitarian ideas, including the claim that the country is riven by inequality in the first place. After all, our economy thrives with a division of labor that allows individuals who are unequal in interests and talents to pursue their own unique goals. Looked at in this way, equality is far more widespread than overheated rhetoric might lead one to expect—as factual data show. But it is an equality of a particularly valuable type—one arrived at, not by top-down attempts to impose economic uniformity, but by our respecting inviolable rules of fair play and the dignity of each person, a dignity that requires everyone to respect the voluntary transactions of others. This approach holds equity, liberty, diversity, and prosperity together. Would we want it any other way in America and anywhere around the world? The authors draw on economics, philosophy, religion, law, political science, and history to provide answers to a perennial question that especially agitates the American public today: Can the coercive powers of the state be used to achieve a kind of arithmetic equality? The authors, each in their own way, make a strong case that they should not be used in this fashion. Love inequality or loathe it, In All Fairness is full of key insights about the connections among fairness, liberty, equality and the quest for human dignity. You won't think about wealth and poverty, equality and inequality, in the same way ever again.
Download or read book Essential Environment written by Jay Withgott and published by Benjamin-Cummings Publishing Company. This book was released on 2007 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Science Behind the Stories retains all the popular features of the landmark first edition-including its integrated central case study approach, and focus on the scientific process, current data and critical thinking- in a brief 15-chapter text. The Second Edition features a new chapter on ecology with expanded coverage of community ecology and biomes. New end-of-chapter activities and interactive exercises on the Environmental Place Website help students hone the skills they need to make informed decisions on environmental issues. Calculating Ecological Footprint activities at the end of each chapter give students practice in applying individual decisions to larger scales. The Investigate It! interactive map on the website provides more than 120 additional case studies.You Decide web activities help students learn how to analyze data on global warming and conservation.
Download or read book Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government written by Robert Henry Nelson and published by The Urban Insitute. This book was released on 2005 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1980 to 2000, half the new housing in the United States was built in a development project governed by a neighborhood association. More than 50 million Americans now live in these associations. In Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government, Robert Nelson reviews the history of neighborhood associations, explains their recent explosive growth, and speculates on their future role in American society. Unlike many previous studies, Nelson takes on the whole a positive view. Neighborhood associations are providing the neighborhood environment controls desired by the residents, high quality common services, and a stronger sense of neighborhood community. Identifying significant operating problems, Nelson proposes new options for improving the future governance of neighborhood associations.
Download or read book The Urban Design Reader written by Michael Larice and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 1087 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of The Urban Design Reader draws together the very best of classic and contemporary writings to illuminate and expand the theory and practice of urban design. Nearly 50 generous selections include seminal contributions from Howard, Le Corbusier, Lynch, and Jacobs to more recent writings by Waldheim, Koolhaas, and Sorkin. Following the widespread success of the first edition of The Urban Design Reader, this updated edition continues to provide the most important historical material of the urban design field, but also introduces new topics and selections that address the myriad challenges facing designers today. The six part structure of the second edition guides the reader through the history, theory and practice of urban design. The reader is initially introduced to those classic writings that provide the historical precedents for city-making into the twentieth century. Part Two introduces the voices and ideas that were instrumental in establishing the foundations of the urban design field from the late 1950s up to the mid-1990s. These authors present a critical reading of the design professions and offer an alternative urban design agenda focused on vital and lively places. The authors in Part Three provide a range of urban design rationales and strategies for reinforcing local physical identity and the creation of memorable places. These selections are largely describing the outcomes of mid-century urban design and voicing concerns over the placeless quality of contemporary urbanism. The fourth part of the Reader explores key issues in urban design and development. Ideas about sprawl, density, community health, public space and everyday life are the primary focus here. Several new selections in this part of the book also highlight important international development trends in the Middle East and China. Part Five presents environmental challenges faced by the built environment professions today, including recent material on landscape urbanism, sustainability, and urban resiliency. The final part examines professional practice and current debates in the field: where urban designers work, what they do, their roles, their fields of knowledge and their educational development. The section concludes with several position pieces and debates on the future of urban design practice. This book provides an essential resource for students and practitioners of urban design, drawing together important but widely dispersed writings. Part and section introductions are provided to assist readers in understanding the context of the material, summary messages, impacts of the writing, and how they fit into the larger picture of the urban design field.
