This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day.Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions.

    This book outlines a structure carefully designed to maximize the quality of life for people and communities worldwide. Also available in cloth, 9057270374.

    Book by Spaces, Project for Public

    Now public artists might design the entire plaza, create an event to alter the social dynamics of an urban environment, or help to reconstruct a neighborhood. Dialogues in Public Art presents a rich blend of interviews with the people who create and experience public art--from an artist who mounted three bronze sculptures in the South Bronx to the bureaucrat who led the fight to have them removed; from an artist who describes his work as a cancer on architecture to a pair of architects who might agree with him; from an artist who formed a coalition to convert twenty-two derelict row houses into an art center/community revitalization project to a young woman who got her life back on track while living in one of the converted houses. The twenty interviews are divided into four parts: Controversies in Public Art, Experiments in Public Art as Architecture and Urban Planning, Dialogues on Dialogue-Based Public Art Projects, and Public Art for Public Health. Tom Finkelpearl's introductory essay provides a concise overview of changing attitudes toward the city as the site of public art.Interviewees: Vito Acconci, John Ahearn, David Avalos, Rufus L. Chaney, Mel Chin, Douglas Crimp, Paulo Freire, Andrew Ginzel, Linnea Glatt, Louis Hock, Ron Jensen, Kristin Jones, Maya Lin, Rick Lowe, Jackie McLean, Frank Moore, Jagoda Przybylak, Denise Scott Brown, Assata Shakur, Michael Singer, Elizabeth Sisco, Arthur Symes, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Robert Venturi, Krzysztof Wodiczko

    Interestingly, while Japanese governments and planners borrowed carefully from the planning ideas and methods of many other countries, Japanese urban planning, urban governance and cities developed very differently from those of other developed countries. Japan's distinctive patterns of urbanisation are partly a product of the highly developed urban system, urban traditions and material culture of the pre-modern period, which remained influential until well after the Pacific War. A second key influence has been the dominance of central government in urban affairs, and its consistent prioritisation of economic growth over the public welfare or urban quality of life. Andre Sorensen examines Japan's urban trajectory from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, paying particular attention to the weak development of Japanese civil society, local governments, and land development and planning regulations.

    Whyte offers the core writings of a great observer of the postwar American scene. Included are selections from The Organization Man, Securing Space for Urban America: Conservation Easements, The Last Landscape, The Social Life of Urban Spaces, and City: Rediscovering the Center, as well as many of Whyte's articles from Fortune Magazine.

    history! This regional blockbuster reached #1 on the Boston Globe's bestseller list. Filled with dozens of remarkable photos and fascinating archival illustrations, it pulsates with details only an insider like Dan McNichol, former director of the project who was in at the conception, could provide. For example:During peak construction years, the Big Dig spends nearly $110,000,000 a month. The project will place 3.8 million cubic yards of concrete, enough to build a sidewalk three feet wide and four inches thick from Boston to San Francisco...three times.Rats! Some city officials told the public that construction would dislodge millions of rats from deep down under the city.When The Big Dig is finally finished, Boston will have over 200 acres of new parks, its skyline will be transformed, and its infamous traffic nightmares will be a thing of the past.

    Intersections is the first book to survey comprehensively this impact on Architecture, providing sixteen essays that intersect a particular critical theory with specific architectural ideas, projects and events. An extended essay by the editors gives an in-depth introduction to the subject. Essays range from psychoanalysis and interiors; colonialism and modern urbanism; gender and the renaissance; to heteroptopia and Las Vegas. Contributors come from Europe and the USA, and include Iain Borden, Zeynep Celik, Sarah Chaplin, Beatriz Colomina, Darell Fields, Murray Fraser, Diane Ghirado, Joe Kerr, Clive Knights, Neil Leach, Barbara Penner, Jane Rendell, Katherine Shonfield, Helen Thomas, Jeremy Till, Henry Urbach and Sarah Wigglesworth.