Planning Books of Interest
I’m a book hound. I have hundreds of books and thousands of magazines. I’ve read nearly all, some more than once. For nearly 20 years I’ve used the Architects and Designers Book Service to order books.
So when I get a catalog in the mail for more books I have to hide the credit cards before I open it up. Such is the case with the American Planning Association’s “Planners Book Service Catalog.”
Below are a few of the books I found very interesting from the catalog. I’ve linked to their site although you can probably order them through other sources like Amazon or local bookstores like Left Bank Books or the St. Louis AIA Bookstore.
The following are just a few of the books that look interesting to me. The descriptions are theirs not mine. – Steve
Three decades ago, urban America was troubled by escalating crime rates and a fleeing middle class, but conditions in many cities were enviable then compared to now. Some are so damaged that to restore them to their 1970 condition seems an insurmountable task, and true revitalization may seem unimaginable to those who control their fate. Yet, all is not lost. CITIES IN FULL explores the great potential of the American city and outlines essential elements necessary for its revitalization.
Steve Belmont embraces Jane Jacobs’ much acclaimed prescription for urban vitality — high densities, mixed land uses, small blocks, and variously aged buildings. He examines neighborhoods that adhere to her precepts and those that do not and compares the results. He examines the destructive forces of decentralization and shows how and why they must be turned into forces of renewal.
The author outlines an agenda for recentralizing commerce, housing, and transportation infrastructure and discusses how recentralization is affected by poor social and economic conditions. He analyzes the deficiencies of current low-income housing policy and offers a strategy more favorable to cities and their metropolitan areas.
Belmont exposes neighborhood political forces that sometimes thwart a city’s best interests and offers an ambitious blueprint for renewal that includes creating middle and upper income housing at moderate and high densities; revitalizing neighborhood commercial streets with an urban spirit; building new centralized infrastructure; and transforming the public realm to attract the middle class.
Exhaustively researched and well illustrated, this book is an invaluable resource for planners dedicated to reviving American cities.
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Regulating Sex Businesses (I couldn’t resist including this one on the list…)
Sex is big business, and the Internet is making it bigger. This report is a practical guide to the regulation of lawful sex businesses and businesses handling significant quantities of sexually oriented materials. Such businesses include: adult cabarets and other establishments with sexually oriented live entertainment; adult movie theaters; adult book stores; adult video stores; sex shops; peep shows, often called video arcades; mainstream video stores with back rooms with sexually oriented material; newsstands with back rooms of sexually oriented materials; and more.
The report examines what constitutes a lawful sex business; First Amendment issues related to the regulation of sexually oriented businesses; land-use issues and adult uses; and operating issues related to sex businesses. Finally, the report suggests ways to structure an effective regulatory program, providing a checklist so that local communities can build an ordinance to suit their particular circumstances.
Local communities have begun to incorporate an element of flexibility into their parking standards. This practical report explores the many factors that influence flexible standards. It looks at innovative parking ordinances that offer incentives for shared parking, ridesharing, and historic preservation. It presents the results of studies of parking demand for residences, offices, hotels, and motels and outlines a process to evaluate local parking standards. The appendices include excerpts from zoning codes, a sample residential parking survey, and a humorous Art Buchwald commentary on parking regulations.
This book is a lively, cleverly illustrated essay on the use and abuse of maps. It teaches you how to evaluate maps critically and promotes a healthy skepticism about these easy-to-manipulate models of “reality.” Monmonier’s clear appraisal of how the making of maps affects the world in which we live is valuable for planners and other potential victims of bad maps. A new chapter in this edition explores the latest computer and multimedia technology used to create maps. This book defends you against cheap atlases, predatory special-interest groups, and others who may use or abuse maps at your expense.
How can planning and transportation professionals safely accommodate bicyclists in a community’s overall transportation plan? This report examines approximately 50 innovative techniques for increasing bicycle safety and use in any community, including contra-flow bike lanes, shared bike/bus lanes, bicycle boulevards, raised bike lanes, and colored bike lanes. It also looks at bicycle detection, signs, parking, and trails, as well as traffic calming techniques.
New Urbanism: Comprehensive Report & Best Practices Guide
A major update of the definitive text on new urban theory and practice, written by the editors of New Urban News and more than 30 leading practitioners of new urban planning, design, development, marketing, and finance. Packing more information into every page, the third edition includes expanded coverage of cutting-edge issues such as planning codes, street design, regional planning, environment and health, transit oriented development, mixed-use town centers, finance and sales of new urban communities, mixed-use parking ratios, and accessory dwelling units. A directory of practitioners, developers, and resources in the trend, plus a list of projects, including those in planning and construction, have been completely updated.
Planning for Street Connectivity: Getting From Here to There
Planning Advisory Service Report No. 515, Planning for Street Connectivity, by Susan Handy, Robert G. Paterson, and Kent Butler, discusses a concept that has met with varied receptions in communities. Some quietly accept it; others fight it vigorously. Proponents point out numerous benefits. These include: a decrease of traffic on arterial streets; more continuous and direct routes that encourage travel by walking and bicycling; greater access and quicker response times for emergency vehicles; more evacuation alternatives in the event of a disaster; and improvements in the quality of utility connections, facilitating maintenance and enabling more efficient trash and recycling collection and other transport-based community services. Opponents, usually residents facing change in their familiar surroundings (or in an adjacent neighborhood) and developers, argue that street connectivity can: raise levels of through traffic on residential streets; increase infrastructure costs and impervious cover; require more land to develop the same number of housing units; decrease the affordability of housing; and threaten the profitability of developments. This report takes a close look at that debate and the evidence, offering research results and studies of the experience of 14 communities’ efforts to incorporate greater connectivity, with Raleigh, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, receiving in-depth studies. Excerpts from the codes of nine communities are included in an appendix. This report will make it possible for planners and others to present a wealth of information to residents and local officials about street connectivity to answer their questions and concerns (e.g., traffic calming to address cut-through traffic, increases in density through design so that return on investment and affordability are likely, and reductions in road widths to limit the amounts of impervious surface). In fact, as the report concludes, the concept has received a much warmer reception where planning staff have educated the public affected by changes in their travel network.
The built environment has a tremendous impact on public safety. Zelinka and Brennan’s SafeScape principles challenge planners and citizens alike to create vibrant, integrated, self-policing, and sustainable communities.
The co-authors examine aspects of the urban environment that influence crime and the fear of crime and recommend strategies for building—or rebuilding—communities where residents feel safe and are safe. SafeScape communities empower citizens and offer many and varied opportunities for positive action. Their inherently safer design makes them easier and less costly to keep safe. Zelinka and Brennan focus on planning and design solutions that minimize opportunities for criminal and victim to come together. Throughout, they stress that these efforts will succeed only if they engage citizens, embrace diversity, and enhance a sense of community.
Personal observations, case studies, and hundreds of photographs from communities across America make SAFESCAPE an interesting, practical, and inspiring guide to safer, livelier, and more inviting communities. This is compelling reading for planners, designers, public safety professionals, and elected officials.
Street Vending: A Survey of Ideas and Lessons for Planners
A good street vending program can provide valuable employment opportunities. But many citizens and business owners criticize vending as an unsightly “Third World” activity that creates trash, jeopardizes public safety, and hurts established local stores. This report offers some recommendations about structural design and operational issues ranging from hours of operation and merchandising to permitting and enforcement. Sidebars describe success stories and cite helpful resources.
What Your Planning Professors Forgot to Tell You: 117 Lessons Every Planner Should Know
What does an urban planner need most? A sense of humor! Peripatetic planner Paul C. Zucker, author of the best selling THE ABZS OF PLANNING MANAGEMENT, proves it in this wise and funny new book from APA Planners Press.
Zucker knows a good story when he’s lived one and he shares a career’s worth in this collection. It’s a tongue-in-cheek primer on how planning really works (or doesn’t). His wry observations ring absolutely true on every page. Practicing planners will nod in rueful agreement with lessons—often learned the hard way—about achieving true success in planning and in life. And those just starting out will benefit from Zucker’s insights about management, vision, career paths, and professional relationships.
What planner hasn’t developed a brilliant idea only to have it shot down by balky politicians? Check out Zucker’s attempt to tame the San Andreas Fault only to be thwarted by the county Board of Supervisors. His conclusion? SOMETIMES IT’S BETTER NOT TO ASK.
Despite such frustrations, Zucker draws the line between planning and politics. PLANNING IS INVOLVED WITH POLITICAL ISSUES BUT PLANNERS SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN POLITICS. But to those who can’t resist the temptation to run for office (as he did, with disastrous results) he offers this sage advice: IF YOU’RE GOING TO SHOOT THE KING, MAKE SURE YOU HIT HIM.
Does any of this sound familiar? There’s more—
With due respect to Daniel Burnham, in the planning world bigger is not always better. Zucker tells why—MAKE LITTLE PLANS—PEOPLE MAY ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND THEM. Still he champions the planner’s essential role as an agent of positive change and asserts BIG IDEAS ARE OUT THERE. PLANNERS NEED TO FIND AND SELL THEM.
Paul Zucker’s forthright and thoughtful advice concerns things that matter a lot to the day-to-day work of a practicing planner: hiring the right person for the right job; building, nurturing, and using constituencies; networking; working with (or around) local government bureaucracies; pitching proposals creatively; and knowing how and when to give up a cherished idea gracefully when the pitch doesn’t work. His engaging profiles of those with whom he has studied and worked reveal the personalities of planners whose names are familiar to anyone who’s labored in the profession during the last half-century.
These cogent lessons will make you laugh and think, and inspire you to do your own job better. Don’t miss this entertaining look back at a unique planning career.