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book review

21 Days and Counting...

January 28, 2012 by Robert Kirkman
with 123 views
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I could hardly resist buying and reading a book titled Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs. It falls into that happy category I call "train reading": engaging enough to hold my attention at the beginnings and ends of work days, but not so demanding that I can't break off from it when I have to change trains or start walking.The... [read more]

4 Cities Books to Start into the New Year

January 5, 2012 by Fabian Neuhaus
with 339 views
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From sustainability to the new beauty in the following four books are put forward to start into 2012. The topics all address some of the concerns raised about cities in the past year or so and all contribute to the current discussion around changes in social and spatial organisation at large. With globalisation and technology social... [read more]

Best Books of 2011

November 24, 2011 by The Dirt ASLA
with 478 views
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Last year, we only have five top books (see earlier post), but this year we’ve expanded the list to ten. A range of great books came past our desks, and any of these may be of interest to your favorite landscape architect. Here are the top ten books of 2011, along with a list of honorable... [read more]

Book - Self Sufficient City - A Promise

November 15, 2010 by Fabian Neuhaus
with 841 views
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The ecological footprint of todays cities around the world has been subject for debate for a number of years now. With the majority of the worlds population living in cities this is an obvious thing to do in order to to optimise energy consumption to reduce the over usage of recourses. In the two discussion on the topic Ecological... [read more]

Shay Salomon’s Little House on a Small Planet… Reviewed

July 3, 2010 by Jared Volpe
with 816 views
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Shay Salomon’s Little House on a Small Planet is not a book about little house design, as I originally thought; it’s a book about everything you should think about before you design and build. Or — if you already own a house — it’s a way to rethink space, and ultimately decide what you want in a “dream house” and what you can compromise... [read more]

Book - City Building

June 27, 2010 by Fabian Neuhaus
with 564 views
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It seems time again for book on how to build a city. This is as an answer or better a following step to all the publication investigating the city the logical step. Necessarily with such a project one has to define a position in many ways, conceptually, socially, technically, culturally or other wise and is in the following relatively... [read more]

The Smart Growth Manual: a Review

January 4, 2010 by Kaid Benfield
with 495 views
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Before getting to disclaimers and qualifications, let me say at the outset that I like this new book a lot.  Written by new urbanist uberforce Andres Duany and his firm’s alumnus Jeff Speck with Mike Lydon, founder of the Street Plans Collective, The Smart Growth Manual (McGraw-Hill, 2009) comprises a concise and affordably priced... [read more]

City Limits: Where I Walked...

January 4, 2010 by Jason King
with 307 views
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One of the inspirations for the Urban Edge is the book City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary by Portland author David Oates. Aside from a great read, David is a fantastic guy and a friend. His recent work as part of the South Waterfront Artist-in-Residence program (which was led by artist Linda K. Johnson, whom also had a UGB... [read more]

Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life

July 16, 2009 by Beth Buczynski
with 179 views
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Note: this book review is a guest post written by a friend of the EcoSpheric Blog and fellow sustainability blogger, Carrie J. Boyko.While written in first person as a snapshot—a year in the life of a Locovore—Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal Vegetable Miracle reads like a novel. Anyone whose daily concerns revolve around the state of our... [read more]

Ebenezer Howard's Garden City concept

June 28, 2009 by Daniel Nairn
with 4,077 views
1

In recognition of the first 100 years of city planning as a profession, APA has selected 100 essential books of planning. While I think the word “essential” may be a little strong, considering that most professional planners have probably only read a handful of these, this is a nice departure point for some summer reading. Thanks to... [read more]

Everything in its place

June 4, 2009 by Daniel Nairn
with 135 views
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I stumbled upon an insightful little book written in 1977, Everything in its Place, about American zoning practice from an anthropological perspective. Judging by the fact that I bought it as a discarded library book for $3, it seems to be mostly forgotten. That’s too bad. Constance Perin, then a researcher at MIT, dug about as deeply... [read more]

Traffic and Building a Multi-Modal Culture in Philadelphia

June 1, 2009 by Urban Direction
with 169 views
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By ArielI recently finished reading an interesting and compelling book by Tom Vanderbilt called Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) and it’s particularly interesting in light of Greg’s last post. The book both helps to explain (though not excuse) much of the worst in drivers’ behavior and also illuminates... [read more]