Any Good Books

[Glomer]

Looking for some titles of good books people have recently read.

I'm interesting in books discussing the history of city planning.

 

[el Guapo]

Sort of a planning book

All the trouble in the world by P.J. O'Rourke

 

[Glomer]

How about being a republican in the city planning field

El Guapo........you must have some literature for this

 

[el Guapo]

Suggested reading

Sorry nothing like that exists in nature; Sometimes it is nice to read around the subject.

The El Guapo Reading List - the last six months

Parliament of Whores
by P.J. O’Rourke

A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny
by Patrick J. Buchanan

The Tragedy of American Compassion
by Marvin Olasky

Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist
by Adrian Desmond, James Moore

Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand

Vermeer: A View of Delft
by Anthony Bailey

The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
by Brian Greene

In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War
by Tobias Wolff

The Curve of Binding Energy
by John A. McPhee

 

[Planderella]

The "Green Book" is one of the better sources for a history of city planning. I think the official title is "Local Government....blah blah blah." Sorry, I can't think of it right now and I'm too lazy to look for it at the present moment.

Also, check out "The American Planner" by Donald Kruckenberg.

 

[amylea]

Suggested Readings

Here are a couple I recently have read that are really interesting:

Utopian England: Community Experiments 1900-1945
Dennis Hardy

The City Reader
LeGates and Stout (I believe). This is a compilation of a variety of some of the best articles with regards to urban planning. You'll recognized many of them from you theory courses in grad school.

The Geography of Nowhere
Kunstler.
Hope you find these enjoyable!

 

[Cardinal]

El Guapo, good to see you are a John McPhee phan. I would recommend The Control of Nature as a must read for any planner. It consists of three stories of how humankind (engineers, mainly) has struggled with the forces of nature to maintain our static built environment in the face of nature's constant assault. The first story, Atchafalaya, is particularly good.

 

[TGlass]

Definitely:

The Geography of Nowhere (Kunstler) and Suburban Nation (Duany et al) for starters.

Reading a general history of city devlopment might not accomplish as much as starting by reading the history of a large (or small) city you are already familiar with.

 

[Downtown]

Originally posted by Giovannip

Well, I'm sure that the book that made me switch majors to Planning and Economic Development at Georgia State is one that everybody's read, but I'll go ahead and put it out there anyway:
The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro
Also liked Race & the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta by Ronald H. Baylor and Kunstler's stuff.
Haven't had much time to read other books because I'm trying to graduate in four years while working full-time - who thought it would be this hard?

 

[rkan]

Towards Cosmopolis - Leonie Sandercock
(how to become a radical planner)

Ecology of Place - Timothy Beatley

Earth in the Balance - Al Gore

The Logic of Making Plans - Lew Hopkins

The Essential William Whyte

The Regional City - Peter Calthorpe and William Fulton

 

[cheryl]

jane jacobs' "the death and life of great american cities" is really cool and is what got me interested in urban planning.

it was written in the 60s, and is still completely relevant.

 

[Terraplan]

Another great Jane Jacobs book is:

"Cities and the Wealth of Nations"

More from a regional than urban planning perspective, and reads like a Jane Austin novel...

 

[Dashboard]

Cities of Tomorrow by Peter Hall...great historical perspectives with international comparisons

Kuntsler's Geography of Nowhere is great too.

 

[Dashboard]

Cities of Tomorrow by Peter Hall...great historical perspectives with international comparisons

Kuntsler's Geography of Nowhere is great too.