But while many people support transit in the abstract, it's often hard to channel that support into good transit investments.  Part of the problem is that transit debates attract many kinds of experts, who often talk past each other.  Ordinary people listen to a little of this and decide that transit is impossible to figure out. Jarrett Walker believes that transit can be simple, if we focus first on the underlying geometry that all transit technologies share. In Human Transit, Walker supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services. Human Transit explains the fundamental geometry of transit that shapes successful systems; the process for fitting technology to a particular community; and the local choices that lead to transit-friendly development. Whether you are in the field or simply a concerned citizen, here is an accessible guide to achieving successful public transit that will enrich any community.

    Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War. This momentous career was shadowed by a tragic personal life, also fully portrayed here.Most of all, he was a social reformer. He didn't simply create places that were beautiful in the abstract. An awesome and timeless intent stands behind Olmsted's designs, allowing his work to survive to the present day. With our urgent need to revitalize cities and a widespread yearning for green space, his work is more relevant now than it was during his lifetime. Justin Martin restores Olmsted to his rightful place in the pantheon of great Americans.

    then the victors imposed democracy on the vanquished. For a group of apprentice architects, artists, and designers, led by a visionary, the dire situation of their country was not an obstacle but an inspiration to plan and think… although they were very different characters, the architects worked closely together to realize their dreams, staunchly supported by a super-creative bureaucracy and an activist state... after 15 years of incubation, they surprised the world with a new architecture—Metabolism—that proposed a radical makeover of the entire land... Then newspapers, magazines, and TV turned the architects into heroes: thinkers and doers, thoroughly modern men… Through sheer hard work, discipline, and the integration of all forms of creativity, their country, Japan, became a shining example... when the oil crisis initiated the end of the West, the architects of Japan spread out over the world to define the contours of a post-Western aesthetic....” —Rem Koolhaas / Hans Ulrich Obrist Between 2005 and 2011, architect Rem Koolhaas and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed the surviving members of Metabolism—the first non-western avant-garde, launched in Tokyo in 1960, in the midst of Japan’s postwar miracle. Project Japan features hundreds of never-before-seen images—master plans from Manchuria to Tokyo, intimate snapshots of the Metabolists at work and play, architectural models, magazine excerpts, and astonishing sci-fi urban visions—telling the 20th century history of Japan through its architecture, from the tabula rasa of a colonized Manchuria in the 1930s to a devastated Japan after the war, the establishment of Metabolism at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokoy, to the rise of Kisho Kurokawa as the first celebrity architect, to the apotheosis of Metabolism at Expo ’70 in Osaka and its expansion into the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s. The result is a vivid documentary of the last moment when architecture was a public rather than a private affair.

    The perception of public transportation in America is often unflattering—a squalid last resort for those with one too many drunk-driving charges, too poor to afford insurance, or too decrepit to get behind the wheel of a car. Indeed, a century of auto-centric culture and city planning has left most of the country with public transportation that is underfunded, ill maintained, and ill conceived. But as the demand for petroleum is fast outpacing the world's supply, a revolution in transportation is under way. Grescoe explores the ascendance of the straphangers—the growing number of people who rely on public transportation to go about the business of their daily lives. On a journey that takes him around the world—from New York to Moscow, Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Bogotá, Phoenix, Portland, Vancouver, and Philadelphia—Grescoe profiles public transportation here and abroad, highlighting the people and ideas that may help undo the damage that car-centric planning has done to our cities and create convenient, affordable, and sustainable urban transportation—and better city living—for all.

    A Californian s Guide to the Trees among Us features over 150 of California s most commonly grown trees. Whether native or cultivated, these are the trees that muffle noise, create wildlife habitats, mitigate pollution, conserve energy, and make urban living healthier and more peaceful.Used as a field guide or read with pleasure for the liveliness of the prose, this book will allow readers to learn the stories behind the trees that shade our parks, grace our yards, and line our streets. Rich in photographs and illustrations, overflowing with anecdote and information, A Californian s Guide to the Trees among Us opens our eyes to a world of beauty just outside our front doors.

    Coney Island's Dreamland—destroyed by fire in 1911, Metropolitan Opera House—demolished in 1967, Moondance Diner—moved to Wyoming in 2007. A celebration of the cherished parts of New York that are no longer.  The New York landmarks remembered here include Coney Island's "Elephant Colossus," an elephant-shaped hotel rumored to be a brothel and destroyed by fire in 1896; the Manhattan Beach Hotel; South Street Seaport; Stanford White's Madison Square Garden; the Vanderbilt, Tiffany, and Astor mansions; Central Park's elevated railway; the first Waldorf Astoria Hotel; the 1939 World's Fair site; Manhattan Train Terminal on Brooklyn Bridge; Ebbet's Field—home of the Brooklyn Dodgers; and the Polo Grounds—home of the NY Giants baseball team. This collection celebrates old theaters and hotels that have burned or been razed, vanished ferry buildings, removed-from-service trolley cars, classic art deco diners, and the demolition that sparked a strong preservation movement in the city: Pennsylvania Station.

     The skyscraper is perhaps the most recognizable icon of the modern urban landscape. Providing offices, homes, restaurants, and shopping to thousands of inhabitants, modern skyscrapers function as small cities- with infrastructure not unlike that hidden beneath our streets. Clean water is provided to floors thousands of feet in the sky; elevators move people swiftly and safely throughout the building; and telecom networks allow virtual meetings with people on other continents. How are these services-considered essential, but largely taken for granted- possible in such a complex structure? What does it really take to sustain human life at such enormous heights? Exploring the interconnected systems that make life livable in the sky is the task of Kate Ascher's stunningly illustrated The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper. Ascher examines skyscrapers from around the world to learn how these incredible structures operate. Just how do skyscrapers sway in the wind, and why exactly is that a good idea? How can a modern elevator be as fast as an airplane? Why are skyscrapers in Asia safer than those in the United States? Have new safeguards been designed to protect skyscrapers from terrorism? What happens when the power goes out in a building so tall? Why are all modern skyscrapers seemingly made of glass, and how can that be safe? How do skyscrapers age, and how can they be maintained over decades of habitation? No detail is too small, no difficulty too big to escape Ascher's encyclopedic eye. Along the way, The Heights introduces the reader to every type of person involved in designing, building, and maintaining a skyscraper: the designers who calculate how weight and weather will affect their structures, the workers who dig the foundations and raise the lightning rods, the crews who clean the windows and maintain the air ducts, and the firefighters-whose special equipment allows blazes to be fought at unprecedented heights. More than a technical survey, Ascher's work is a triumphant ode to the most monumental aspect of modern civilization. Saturated with vivid illustrations and unforgettable anecdotes, The Heights is the ultimate guide to the way things work in the skyscraper.

    Ross Chapin begins the book by outlining the shifts in the scale of community and the American Dream over several generations, leading to super-sized houses in a sea of development, then describes a solution to help restore healthy, livable communities. The first section of the book looks at historic precedents of pocket neighborhoods, from 15th century hofje almshouses in the Netherlands, to a 19th century Methodists Camp Community on Martha’s Vineyard, to early 20th century Garden City models and Southern California Cottage Courtyards. The second section covers a wide range of contemporary pocket neighborhoods, including New Urban communities, affordable housing, houseboat communities, eco-neighborhoods, and Ross Chapin Architects’ own pocket neighborhood examples. The third section focuses on ‘cohousing’ communities, from Danish origins in the 1960s, to examples across America, Australia and New Zealand, including a chapter on senior cohousing. The fourth section looks at retrofitting pocket neighborhoods within existing communities. Throughout the book are series of “Design Keys” that highlight the essential principles of pocket neighborhood planning and design, and short stories about “Pocket Neighborhood Pioneers” who blazed new trails. The book is filled with rich photographs, drawings, illustrations and site plans, and a Resources section at the end provides leads for the reader to explore the topic in further detail.

    Looks at how a city used to run—the old transport systems, former city halls, stores, theaters and cinemas, gas stations and car showrooms, restaurants, and people on the sidewalk Aspects of lost San Francisco that are examined here include the Victorian Alcatraz, Cliff House Hotel before it burned down, the early Embarcadero, the devastation of the 1906 earthquake, horse-drawn streetcars, the grandeur of the Sutro Baths both outside and in, the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition buildings, the changes made to combat a possible Japanese invasion during World War II, and some of the key hippie stores on Haight-Ashbury before the area became more upscale.

    

    The story of how it came to be is a remarkable one: two young citizens with no prior experience in planning and development collaborated with their neighbors, elected officials, artists, local business owners, and leaders of burgeoning movements in horticulture and landscape architecture to create a park celebrated worldwide as a model for creatively designed, socially vibrant, ecologically sound public space.Joshua David and Robert Hammond met in 1999 at a community board meeting to consider the fate of the High Line. Built in the 1930s, it carried freight trains to the West Side when the area was defined by factories and warehouses. But when trains were replaced by truck transport, the High Line became obsolete. By century's end it was a rusty, forbidding ruin. Plants grew between the tracks, giving it a wild and striking beauty.David and Hammond loved the ruin and saw in it an opportunity to create a new way to experience their city. Over ten years, they did so. In this candid and inspiring book— lavishly illustrated—they tell how they relied on skill, luck, and good timing: a crucial court ruling, an inspiring design contest, the enthusiasm of Mayor Bloomberg, the concern for urban planning issues following 9/11. Now the High Line—a half-mile expanse of plants, paths, staircases, and framed vistas—runs through a transformed West Side and reminds us that extraordinary things are possible when creative people work together for the common good.

    Rising high above the city centers, with towering views of the San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and San Francisco itself, these elegant civic walking trails—many of them shaded in oaks and redwoods, and many unknown even to local residents—present a unique landscape for both the casual walker and dedicated hiker.Charles Fleming, the Southern California author whose bestselling 2010 walking guide Secret Stairs turned the hidden public staircases of Los Angeles into popular hiking trails, now turns his eyes northward. For Secret Stairs: East Bay, Fleming has designed more than 30 individual hiking loops. Linking multiple staircases into one-to two-hour self-guided strolls, these urban treks will delight the tourist, newly arrived Berkeley undergraduate, and veteran Bay Area resident alike.The circular walks, each calibrated by length, difficulty, and duration—and each accompanied by a detailed, easy-to-follow map—are sprinkled with fascinating facts about the historic staircases, the historic homes around them, and the famous Bay Area characters who gave them their names. Walk the walks of Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and John Muir! Climb Berkeley’s massive Fred Herbert and Tamalpais Paths, hike Easter Way, and summit Sunset Trail! Mount Oakland’s Oakmore stairs, then tackle the hills of Upper Rockridge and Crocker Highlands via the public staircases. And do it all within easy walking distance from BART or bus stops, free parking, and excellent Bay Area cafés.

    It has also given new impetus to the struggles of urban social movements emphasizing the injustice, destructiveness and unsustainability of capitalist forms of urbanization. This book contributes analyses intended to be useful for efforts to roll back contemporary profit-based forms of urbanization, and to promote alternative, radically democratic and sustainable forms of urbanism.The contributors provide cutting-edge analyses of contemporary urban restructuring, including the issues of neoliberalization, gentrification, colonization, "creative" cities, architecture and political power, sub-prime mortgage foreclosures and the ongoing struggles of "right to the city" movements. At the same time, the book explores the diverse interpretive frameworks - critical and otherwise - that are currently being used in academic discourse, in political struggles, and in everyday life to decipher contemporary urban transformations and contestations. The slogan, "cities for people, not for profit," sets into stark relief what the contributors view as a central political question involved in efforts, at once theoretical and practical, to address the global urban crises of our time.Drawing upon European and North American scholarship in sociology, politics, geography, urban planning and urban design, the book provides useful insights and perspectives for citizens, activists and intellectuals interested in exploring alternatives to contemporary forms of capitalist urbanization.

    The Arsenal includes minor, seemingly benign things like "NO LOITERING" SIGNS and BOUNCERS, but also big, headline-grabbing entities like GATED COMMUNITIES and EMINENT DOMAIN. It includes policies like INCLUSIONARY ZONING and RENT CONTROL, but also physical things like BOMBS and those ARMRESTS that they put on park benches to make sure homeless people don't get too comfortable. Some of the entries in the Arsenal--like HALLOWEEN, FAMOUS PEOPLES' HOUSES, and JURY DUTY--are probably things you didn't know had anything to do with cities at all, let alone this war for what Henri Lefebvre called the "right to the city."With contributions from over fifty of the best minds in architecture, such as Julie Behrens, Bill Bishop, Lisa Brawley, Ava Bromberg, Marshall Brown, Common Room, Charles Connerly, Nathan Connolly, Margaret Crawford, Alexander D'Hooghe, Elizabeth Evitts Dickenson, David Freund, Gerald Frug, Vincent James, Jeffrey Johnson, Michael Kubo, Kaja Kuhl, Matthew Lassiter, Amy Lavine, Setha Low, Thomas Oles, Michael Piper, Wendy Plotkin, Jenny Polak, Albert Pope, Mathan Ratinam, Brian Ripel, James Rojas, Theresa Schwarz, Roger Sherman, Susan Sloan, Lior Strahilevitz, Meredith TenHoor, William TenHoor, Thumb Projects (Graphic Design), Stephen Walker and Jennifer Yoos, among others.

    This book includes abandoned tunnels, derelict stations, old trackbeds and more that can be viewed in a series of 12 guided walks and short tube and train journeys, devised and investigated by the author.

    With photographs and ephemera from all over the world, this lavish book goes beyond in-store extravaganzas to the history of these consumer institutions, the personalities behind them, their vast range of goods, unique architecture, advertising, and associated sociological trends. With perfumed air and chandeliers, department stores have lured millions for over a century with that enticing, dizzying sense that no matter how much you already have, there is always more.Praise for The World of Department Stores:“Since my visits as a child to La Opera Department Store in Santo Domingo, I have believed that the best department stores are merchants not of clothing or shoes or cosmetics but of dreams. Whitaker’s book is a remarkable around-the-world look at these dream factories. It is an invaluable resource to anyone interested in the business of retailing and to shoppers everywhere.”—Oscar de la Renta “The World of Department Stores is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the foundations of the urban experience in the West and the department store as the ultimate expression of the needs of the rising middle class and its tastes.” ­—Leonard Lauder, Chairman Emeritus, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.   “I have nothing but good memories about the many department stores that played an important part in my business, [and] I warmly welcome the publication of this wonderful and unique book on department stores throughout the world.” —Hubert de Givenchy "The birth of the department store in the late 19th century brought everything glamorous together under one roof—from inviting, intelligent architecture and design to the latest fashions. Jan Whitaker's The World of Department Stores looks back to the biggest and brightest shops— including the belle epoque splendor of Paris's Bon Marché, the block-long, palatial GUM in Moscow; and the always outrageous holiday windows at Barneys New York." –Elle Décor "In photos and art, this visual feast details the extraordinary history of the world's "great retail palaces" from the past century. With authoritative and informative text." -Sacramento Bee "Illustrated with photos of window displays, catalog covers and the Gilded Age architecture of institutions from Philadelphia’s long-gone Wanamaker’s to Paris’s still-strong La Samaritaine, The World of Department Stores makes a worthwhile gift for the history, sociology or shopping buff on your list. " -Washington Post

    In his latest book, management expert Ken Miller discusses how the processes of state and local government became so complicated and inefficient – and how to start cleaning up the mess. With his typical irreverent and funny tone, Ken lays out the simple ways that public-sector leaders can tear down all the twisted, broken parts of government and rebuild it stronger, leaner and better equipped to help citizens. Full of clear, concise tips on increasing government’s capacity, Extreme Government Makeover is essential reading for everyone in government, from top-level executives to managers and employees on the front lines.What you’ll learn in Extreme Government Makeover• The one and only thing government needs to focus on to get out of this crisis• How government can perform its vital functions 80 percent faster, at less cost and with better quality• The DNA of government complexity and how we can genetically modify it • How to spot the “moldy” thinking that is making us all sick• How to get rid of 40 percent of your agency’s workload• How to find the hidden costs of government• What the next generation of customers and employees are going to do to your operations• Why technology isn’t the answer• Most importantly, you’ll learn a new way of seeing the work of government – and a better way to make that work great.

    Highlighting the connection between graffiti and street art and other vibrant subcultures, such as those that developed around Hip Hop in the Bronx and skateboarding in Southern California, Art in the Streets explores parallel movements in dance and music. The exhibition is curated by MoCA Director Jeffrey Deitch, working with a curatorial advisory committee that includes Roger Gastman and Aaron Rose.

    To make the book accessible to a broad range of readers, the analysis is diagrammatic rather than mathematical. Although nontechnical, the book relies on rigorous economic reasoning. In contrast to the cursory theoretical development often found in other textbooks, Lectures on Urban Economics offers thorough and exhaustive treatments of models relevant to each topic, with the goal of revealing the logic of economic reasoning while also teaching urban economics.Topics covered include reasons for the existence of cities, urban spatial structure, urban sprawl and land-use controls, freeway congestion, housing demand and tenure choice, housing policies, local public goods and services, pollution, crime, and quality of life. Footnotes throughout the book point to relevant exercises, which appear at the back of the book. These 22 extended exercises (containing 125 individual parts) develop numerical examples based on the models analyzed in the chapters. Lectures on Urban Economics is suitable for undergraduate use, as background reading for graduate students, or as a professional reference for economists and scholars interested in the urban economics perspective.

    Actions that may once have sent students to the detention hall or resulted in their suspension may now introduce them to the criminal justice system. In Police in the Hallways, Kathleen Nolan explores the impact of policing and punitive disciplinary policies on the students and their educational experience.Through in-depth interviews with and observations of students, teachers, administrators, and police officers, Nolan offers a rich and nuanced account of daily life at a Bronx high school where police patrol the hallways and security and discipline fall under the jurisdiction of the NYPD. She documents how, as law enforcement officials initiate confrontations with students, small infractions often escalate into “police matters” that can lead to summonses to criminal court, arrest, and confinement in juvenile detention centers.Nolan follows students from the classroom and the cafeteria to the detention hall, the dean’s office, and the criminal court system, clarifying the increasingly intimate relations between the school and the criminal justice system. Placing this trend within the context of recent social and economic changes, as well as developments within criminal justice and urban school reform, she shows how this police presence has created a culture of control in which penal management overshadows educational innovation.Police in the Hallways also examines the prevalent forms of oppositional behavior through which students express their frustrations and their deep sense of exclusion. With compassion and clear-eyed analysis, Nolan sounds a warning about this alarming convergence of prison and school cultures and the negative impact that it has on the real lives of low-income students of color—and, in turn, on us all.

    Over subsequent months and years, follow-up interviews produced a deep and revealing look at how the attacks changed individual lives and communities in New York City.After the Fall presents a selection of these fascinating testimonies, with heartbreaking and enlightening stories from a broad range of New Yorkers. The interviews include first-responders, taxi drivers, school teachers, artists, religious leaders, immigrants, and others who were interviewed at intervals since the 2001 attacks. The result is a remarkable time-lapse account of the city as it changed in the wake of 9/11, one that will resonate powerfully with New Yorkers and millions of others who continue to feel the impact of the most damaging attack on American soil in history.

    Photographing on the ground, in the buildings and by air and water, Reyes Taubman believes that when buildings and landscape are manipulated by nature and time they become more visually compelling than almost any architectural intervention. Reyes Taubman is not pessimistic, however: "It is not a disgrace but a privilege and an obligation to listen to the stories only ruins can tell," she writes in regard to this project. "They tell us a lot about who we were, what we once valued most, and perhaps where we may be going." As Reyes Taubman scrutinizes this 138-square-mile metropolis in transition, she pays particular attention to the scale and the solidity of the buildings that characterized the former "Motor City" at the height of its industrial wealth and power. More than a photographic saturation job of a single city, Detroit: 138 Square Miles provides contextual perspective in an extended caption section in which Reyes Taubman collaborated with University of Michigan professors Robert Fishman and Michael McCulloch to emphasize the social imperatives driving her documentation. An essay by native Detroiter and bestselling author Elmore Leonard addresses the social and cultural significance of the post-industrial condition of this metropolis.

    The KunstlerCast is based on the popular weekly podcast of the same name, which features Kunstler in dialogue with author Duncan Crary, offering a personal window into Kunstler's world view.Presented as a long-form conversational interview, The KunstlerCast revisits and updates all the major ideas contained in Kunstler's body of work, including:The need to rethink current sources of transportation and energyThe failure of urban planning, architecture, and industrial societyAmerica's plastic, dysfunctional cultureThe reality of Peak OilWhether sitting in the studio, strolling city streets, visiting a suburban mall, or even "happy motoring", Kunstler's grim predictions Kunstler makes about America's prospects are leavened by his signature sharp wit and humor. This book is rounded out by commentary, footnotes, and supplemental vignettes told from the perspective of an "embedded" reporter on the Kunstler beat.Readers may or may not agree with the more dystopian of Kunstler's visions. Regardless, The KunstlerCast is bound to inspire a great deal of thought, laugher, and, hopefully, action.Duncan Crary is a journalist, editor, independent communications specialist, and new media consultant. He is the host and producer of The KunstlerCast, a popular weekly podcast featuring James Howard Kunstler (author of The Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and World Made By Hand).

    Armed with his camera, he traces their routes and reveals their often overlooked remains: riverside pubs on the Old Kent Road, healing wells in King's Cross, 'stink pipes' in Hammersmith and gurgling gutters on streets across the city.Packed with maps and over 100 colour photographs, London's Lost Rivers uncovers the watery history of the city's most famous sights, bringing to life the very different London that lies beneath our feet.

    Fitzgerald, at its core, is dedicated to understanding global phenomena through the intensive study of a small, local place.Beginning with an 1816 encounter between the Ojibwa population and the neighborhood’s first surveyor, William Bunge examines the racialized imposition of local landscapes over the course of European American settlement. Historical events are firmly situated in space—a task Bunge accomplishes through liberal use of maps and frequent references to recognizable twentieth-century landmarks.More than a work of historical geography, Fitzgerald is a political intervention. By 1967 the neighborhood was mostly African American; Black Power was ascendant; and Detroit would experience a major riot. Immersed in the daily life of the area, Bunge encouraged residents to tell their stories and to think about local politics in spatial terms. His desire to undertake a different sort of geography led him to create a work that was nothing like a typical work of social science. The jumble of text, maps, and images makes it a particularly urgent book—a major theoretical contribution to urban geography that is also a startling evocation of street-level Detroit during a turbulent era.A Sarah Mills Hodge Fund Publication

    We're talking of course about New York's legendary rooftop gardens. Like their predecessors in Babylon, these urban oases truly are one of the world's great wonders. Set amid the concrete canyons, these horticultural hideaways offer respite from New York's relentless pace. High above the city that never sleeps, these serene spaces offer a chance to laze, potter and nap. The gardens' plants, furnishing, and the landscape engineering that makes them possible are sure to inspire awe. Set against dramatic cityscapes, these are some of the most fascinating green spaces on the planet.

    Stanek explicitly confronts both the philosophical and the empirical foundations of Lefebvre’s oeuvre, especially his direct involvement in the fields of urban development, planning, and architecture.Countering the prevailing view, which reduces Lefebvre’s theory of space to a projection of his philosophical positions, Stanek argues that Lefebvre’s work grew out of his concrete, empirical engagement with everyday practices of dwelling in postwar France and his exchanges with architects and planners. Stanek focuses on the interaction between architecture, urbanism, sociology, and philosophy that occurred in France in the 1960s and 1970s, which was marked by a shift in the processes of urbanization at all scales, from the neighborhood to the global level. Lefebvre’s thinking was central to this encounter, which informed both his theory of space and the concept of urbanization becoming global.Stanek offers a deeper and clearer understanding of Lefebvre’s thought and its implications for the present day. At a time when cities are increasingly important to our political, spatial, and architectural world, this reassessment proposes a new empirical, and practical, interpretation of Lefebvre’s ideas on urbanism.

    In twenty-seven chapters that cover roughly a century of Detroit's rich and colorful history, Bak relives the scandals, mysteries, catastrophes, triumphs, and celebrations that have rocked Detroit. He also introduces readers to the heroes, criminals, stars, and regular people who lived through them, or in some cases, set them in motion. Detroitland contains the stories behind familiar names like Frank Murphy, the infamous Purple Gang, the Lone Ranger, "Potato Patch" Pingree, and Charles Lindbergh. Yet Bak also reveals lesser-known episodes in Detroit's history, like the ambitious International Exposition & Fair of 1889; the killer heat wave of 1936, with five straight days of hundred-degree temperatures; and the attempted around-the-world flight of Ed Schlee and Billy Brock in the Pride of Detroit in 1927. He introduces readers to little-known and unique Detroit characters, like the fierce Black Legion gang that was Detroit's own version of the Ku Klux Klan; Johnny Miler, the man who walloped Joe Louis in the Brown Bomber's first-ever amateur fight; patrolman Ben Turpin, the terror of Black Bottom criminals; Sophie Lyons, legendary "Queen of the Underworld" and Detroit philanthropist; and Shorty Long, Brenda Holloway, the Velvelettes, and other forgotten Motown artists of the '60s. Told in Bak's conversational and eminently readable style, the historical essays in Detroitland will prove hard to put down for anyone interested in Detroit's history or those looking for an informative and entertaining read.

    Its three main facades, crowned by towers, contain a mass of details full of symbolism and mysticism."

    This follow-up to Phaidon’s successful The Endless City is a close look at the issues that affect cities, and thus human life across the globe in the twenty-first century. Based on a series of conferences held by the London School of Economics, Living in the Endless City examines Mumbai, Sao Paolo and Istanbul through a series of essays by global scholars and thinkers, photographs illustrating key aspects of life in the three cities, and compellingly presented analytical data.

    This prehistoric landscape, molded and shaped by early men and women, determined the position of such famous London landmarks as St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, and Westminster Abbey. It has not been completely obliterated by the concrete and tarmac and this book explores what remains of these early sites. It also examines the religious beliefs and mythology of the pre-Roman area which became London, and discusses how these legends tie in with the various ancient features of the city.

    Historian J. Frederick Fausz offers a fresh interpretation of Saint Louis from 1764 to 1804, explaining how Pierre Lacl de, the early Chouteaus, Saint Ange de Bellerive and the Osage Indians established a "gateway" to an enlightened, alternative frontier of peace and prosperity before Lewis and Clark were even born. Historians, genealogists and general readers will appreciate the well-researched perspectives in this engaging story about a novel French West long ignored in American History.

    Aubrey Bodine was a Baltimore Sunday Sun feature photographer for 43 years. The 154 images displayed here were shot within a four mile radius of where he lived or worked. The subject matter of these powerful images is exclusively Baltimore, and yet this is not a Baltimore picture book. The reason these photos transcend their geographical bounds is that Bodine's subject matter varied wildly, demonstrating the versatility of Bodine as an artist. Bodine is called a pictorialist, but he is much more than that one defining label. He photographed people, animals, buildings, harsh weather conditions, textures, geometric patterns, and cityscapes, devoting his life to elevating photography to an art form. He was famous for his dark room magic. Changes to any photograph occurred in the darkroom and they were all done by hand. Open these pages and enter into the magic that is Bodine's photography.

    Focusing on the region humorists have referred to as "Lesser Los Angeles"--a global prototype for sprawl--Karen Tongson weaves through suburbia's "nowhere" spaces to survey our spatial imaginaries: the aesthetic, creative and popular materials of the new suburbia.Across southern California's freeways, beneath its overpasses and just beyond its winding cloverleaf interchanges, Tongson explores the improvisational archives of queer suburban sociability, from multimedia artist Lynne Chan's JJ Chinois projects and the amusement park night-clubs of 1980s Orange County to the imperial legacies of the region known as the Inland Empire. By taking a hard look at the cosmopolitanism historically considered de rigeur for queer subjects, while engaging with the so-called "New Suburbanism" that has captivated the national imaginary in everything from lifestyle trends to electoral politics, Relocations radically revises our sense of where to see and feel queer of color sociability, politics and desire.

    Jacobs contends, ought to be magnificent, beautiful places to live. They should be places where people can be fulfilled, where they can be what they can be, where there is freedom, love, ideas, excitement, quiet and joy. Cities ought to be the ultimate manifestation of society's collective achievements.Allan B. Jacobs is one of the world's best known planners and urban design practitioners, with a long and distinguished international career. Drawing on his professional experience of almost sixty years, Jacobs guides the reader through the lessons he's learnt as a planner and lover of cities. Cities from Brazil, Italy, India, Japan, China and the US are featured.Written with a wonderfully engaging, humorous tone and Jacobs' own drawings, The Good City transfers lessons on city design, building and urban change to all those willing to help cities become the magnificent, beautiful places they should be - and encourages all inhabitants to learn to appreciate and explore their own cities.

    It includes important contributions from a respected group of scholars across a range of generations, disciplines, and sites of study. Describes the new theoretical framework of 'worlding' Substantially expands and updates the themes of capital and culture Includes a unique collection of authors across generations, disciplines, and sites of study Demonstrates how references to Asian power, success, and hegemony make possible urban development and limit urban politics

    However, this conception of its history entirely excludes the very controversial presence of the Mexican muralists, as well as the work of other artists who were influenced by them and responded to their ideas. It is likewise often thought that Los Angeles' Mexican culture arrived full formed from outside it, when in fact that culture originated within the city--it was in Los Angeles and Southern California that Jos� Vasconcelos, Ricardo Flores Mag�n, Octavio Paz and other intellectuals developed the iconography of modern Mexico, while Anglos and Chicanos were developing their own. David Alfaro Siqueiros, Clemente Orozco, Alfredo Ramos Mart�nez and Jean Charlot made some of their earliest murals in Los Angeles, influencing the Mexican, Mexican-American and Chicano artists of the 1970s and 80s. MEX/LA: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985 focuses on the construction of different notions of "Mexicanidad" within modernist and contemporary art created in Los Angeles. From the Olvera Street mural by Siqueiros, to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema and the Disney silver-screen productions, to the revitalization of the street mural, up to the performance art of Guillermo G�mez-Pe�a, MEX/LA explores the bi-national and hybrid forms of artistic practices, popular culture and mass-media arts that have so uniquely shaped Los Angeles' cultural panorama.

    Contemplating a series of seemingly banal subjects--maps, public art, parks--Joseph Allen peels back layers of obscured history to reveal forces that caused cultural objects to be celebrated, despised, destroyed, or transformed as Taipei experienced successive regime changes and waves of displacement. In this thoughtful stroll through the city, we learn to look beyond surface ephemera, moving from the general to the particular to see sociocultural phenomena in their historical and contemporary contexts.Watch the book trailer: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBdGIoox7zM

    Offering the most complete description available of the river reversal, the stories told here provide a better understanding as to how it was done and why it was necessary, as well as how the water from the Chicago River is treated. The photographs were pulled from a glass plate photo collection taken by the Sanitary District of Chicago.

    Through ethnographic accounts of contests over New York City's public spaces that highlight the tension between resistance and repression, Shepard and Smithsimon identify how changes in the control of public spaces--parks, street corners, and plazas--have reliably foreshadowed elites' shifting designs on the city at large. With an innovative taxonomy of public space, the authors frame the ways spaces as diverse as gated enclaves, luxury shopping malls, collapsing piers and street protests can be understood in relation to one another. Synthesizing the fifty-year history of New York's neoliberal transformation and the social movements which have opposed the process, The Beach Beneath the Streets captures the dynamics at work in the ongoing shaping of urban spaces into places of repression, expression, control, and creativity.

    St. Louis, founded simply as a French trading post, was expanding into a diverse global village. Few communities in eighteenth-century North America had such a varied population: indigenous Americans, French traders and farmers, African and Indian slaves, British officials, and immigrant explorers interacted there under the weak guidance of the Spanish governors. As the city’s significance as a hub of commerce grew, its populace became increasingly unpredictable, feuding over matters large and small and succumbing too often to the temptations of “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” But British leaders and American Revolutionaries still sought to acquire the area, linking St. Louis to the era’s international political and economic developments and placing this young community at the crossroads of empire.With its colonial period too often glossed over in histories of both early America and the city itself, St. Louis merits a new treatment. The first modern book devoted exclusively to the history of colonial St. Louis, The World, the Flesh, and the Devil illuminates how its people loved, fought, worshipped, and traded. Covering the years from the settlement’s 1764 founding to its 1804 absorption into the young United States, this study reflects on the experiences of the village’s many inhabitants.The World, the Flesh, and the Devil recounts important, neglected episodes in the early history of St. Louis in a narrative drawn from original documentary records. Chapters detail the official censure of the illicit union at the heart of St. Louis’s founding family, the 1780 battle that nearly destroyed the village, Spanish efforts to manage commercial relations between Indian peoples and French traders, and the ways colonial St. Louisans tested authority and thwarted traditional norms. Patricia Cleary argues that St. Louis residents possessed a remarkable willingness to adapt and innovate, which enabled them to survive the many challenges they faced.The interior regions of the U.S. have been largely relegated to the margins of colonial American history, even though their early times were just as dynamic and significant as those that occurred back east. The World, the Flesh, and the Devil is an inclusive, wide-ranging, and overdue account of the Gateway city’s earliest years, and this engaging book contributes to a comprehensive national history by revealing the untold stories of Upper Louisiana’s capital.

    Yet the city that locals once knew - lavish window displays at Woodies, supper at the grand Raleigh Hotel and a Friday night game at Griffith Stadium - is gone. From the raucous age of burlesque at the Gayety Theater and the once bustling Center Market to the mystery of Suter's Tavern and the disappearance of the Key mansion in Georgetown, DeFerrari recalls the lost Washington, D.C., of yesteryear.