In an age of virtual offices, urban flight, and planned gated communities, are cities becoming obsolete? In this passionate manifesto, Moshe Safdie argues that as crucibles for creative, social, and political interaction, vital cities are an organic and necessary part of human civilization. If we are to rescue them from dispersal and decay, we must first revise our definition of what constitutes a city.Unlike many who believe that we must choose between cities and suburbs, between mass transit and highways, between monolithic highrises and panoramic vistas, Safdie envisions a way to have it all. Effortless mobility throughout a region of diverse centers, residential communities, and natural open spaces is the key to restoring the rich public life that cities once provided while honoring our profound desire for privacy, flexibility, and freedom. With innovations such as transportation nodes, elevated moving sidewalks, public utility cars, and buildings designed to maximize daylight, views, and personal interaction, Safdie's proposal challenges us all to create a more satisfying and humanistic environment.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Cities will continue to accommodate the automobile, but when cities are built around them, the quality of human and natural life declines. Current trends show great promise for future urban mobility systems that enable freedom and connection, but not dependence. We are experiencing the phenomenon of peak car use in many global cities at the same time that urban rail is thriving, central cities are revitalizing, and suburban sprawl is reversing. Walking and cycling are growing in many cities, along with ubiquitous bike sharing schemes, which have contributed to new investment and vitality in central cities including Melbourne, Seattle, Chicago, and New York. We are thus in a new era that has come much faster than global transportation experts Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy had predicted: the end of automobile dependence. In The End of Automobile Dependence, Newman and Kenworthy look at how we can accelerate a planning approach to designing urban environments that can function reliably and conveniently on alternative modes, with a refined and more civilized automobile playing a very much reduced and manageable role in urban transportation. The authors examine the rise and fall of automobile dependence using updated data on 44 global cities to better understand how to facilitate and guide cities to the most productive and sustainable outcomes. This is the final volume in a trilogy by Newman and Kenworthy on automobile dependence (Cities and Automobile Dependence in 1989 and Sustainability and Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence in 1999). Like all good trilogies this one shows the rise of an empire, in this case that of the automobile, the peak of its power, and the decline of that empire.

McShane examines the uniquely American relation between auto-mobility and urbanization. Deftly combining urban and technological history, McShane focuses on how new transportation systems -- most important, the private automobile -- and new concepts of the city redefined each other in modern America.

A provocative look at our nation's dependency on the automobile and how its potential impact on urban design will either make or break our health, economy, and quality of life. In this thought-provoking work, author and urban planning expert Chad Frederick scrutinizes the use of automobiles in cities, investigating its role in exacerbating urban inequalities and thwarting sustainability of modern society. Through a comprehensive, thoughtful discussion, Frederick illustrates how the automobile is fundamentally at odds with the very nature of cities. He shows how cars impose huge burdens on our health, equity, environment, local and national economy, and quality of life. Most of all, he shows how automobile dependency has put our entire society at risk. The book delves into the monumental role of automobiles in the development of cities after the Great Depression, impacting the American identity and affecting the way we produce and manage urban spaces. Frederick provides compelling evidence that cities with more diverse modes of transportation are greener, healthier, more prosperous, and even more enjoyable places to live than automobile-dependent cities. He identifies one institution responsible for our inability to improve our cities: the social sciences, and examines the root cause of our inability to make progress toward more multi-modal cities. In conclusion, the author offers a radical solution for moving beyond the underlying logic that forces us to create automobile-dependent cities.