Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder

by Ken Greenberg

One of the world's foremost urban designers shares his passion and methods for rejuvenating neglected cities and argues passionately for the importance and possibilities of their renewal.

From a youth spent in the boroughs of New York City and other great cities of the world, to his beginnings as an architect in Toronto, Ken Greenberg has long recognized that cities at their best provide much of what we seek in a place to call home. Community, places of culture and business that we can walk to, mass transit and a wealth of amenities that couldn't be supported without a city's density: the mid-century drive to suburbanization deprived us of these inherent advantages of urban living. The realization of this loss, in tandem with pressing recent concerns about energy scarcity and global warming, has made us see cities with fresh eyes and a growing understanding that they can provide us with an unparalleled measure of sustainability.

Ken Greenberg has not only advocated for the renewal of downtown cores, he has for thirty years designed the very means by which that renewal can happen. Walking Home is both Ken's story and a lesson in turning the world's urban spaces back into places that can give us not only a platform to face the challenges of the future, but also a place we can call, with pride and satisfaction, home.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Urbanism, Nonfiction, Urban Planning, Urban Studies, Cities, Urban, Architecture

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Robin Marwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Jane Jacobs you'll probably like Ken Greenberg, the implementation to Jacobs' theory. While this book is particularly resonant if you live in Toronto, where Greenberg has lived and worked for decades, it's full of fascinating anecdotes of city building (failed and successful) all over the world. Very inspiring to those of us who love cities and want them to keep working.

Via Spacing: http://spacingtoronto.ca/2011/05/24/k...

[Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

The audience for this memoir must be fairly specialized. Greenberg recounts memories of his youth mostly in order, but when he reaches adulthood, the structure flips from chronological to topical coverage of major themes in urban planning, bouncing forwards and backwards over the last several decades. It’s worth keeping Google Earth close at hand when reading this, to look at the cities and neighborhoods he describes. Greenberg appreciates half a loaf, so sees at least partial success in a number of his designs that were incompletely realized. There’s very little here about his personal or familial life; it’s a professional memoir, and touches on virtually every cutting-edge theme in urban design as of 2011: walkable communities, Complete Streets, integrated water management, lively street-level activity, mixed uses, transit-oriented development. Underneath all of that, Jane Jacobs’ ‘patch dynamics’ vision of the urban economic ecosytem breathes through Greenberg’s planning principles and espcially through his experiences with projects in the city of Toronto.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started a longer review but closed the app and lost it. This was a real slog. I had started it years ago and was enjoying it but upon re-read was not too into it. My sister read me the last 40 pages aloud while I was driving. That was more enjoyable.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting discussion of the urban environment and good city building. The author lives in Toronto currently, so there was lots of local discussion, but he's lived and worked in a variety of places, so there was context.

[Gary Nicholl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favourite books, and my all time favourite non-fiction. As someone who is deeply passionate about Cities and what they can be, I found this book very inspiring and insightful. I will definitively recommend it to anyone who is interested in how cities can be improved and why.

[Timothy Neesam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part memoir, part urban renewal treatise, planner Ken Greenberg takes us through his 30-year career and examines how cities and urban residents face and (sometimes) overcome urban challenges.

I picked up the book in part to the book title's reference to walking, and because I wanted to find out what makes my city, Toronto, tick.

From growing up in Brooklyn to living and working in Toronto, Greenberg covers what makes cities pleasurable and how city planning (or lack thereof) can make or impede quality living.

The book begins as memoir and evolves to a more thematic approach to what makes cities work well. Examples come from projects he's worked on in Canada, the U.S. and Northern Europe. Greenberg writes about the organic nature of cities, and what helps make them sustainable (walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented, diverse neighbourhoods that possess the infrastructure to re-invent themselves).

There are lots and lots of specific examples of how cities thrive, and how poor planning can place a chokehold on things that make cities pleasurable to live in. While suburbs come up a lot as 'cities gone wrong,' there's not a lot about what makes them so attractive to people and what city planning can do to make them better.

This is a great read for anyone interested in how urban planning theory is put into practice with examples of what makes great cities to pleasurable to visit and live in.

[Mike Parkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t do much better than Shawn Micallef’s quote on the back cover: “Greenberg’s guide to city building is refreshingly accessible and invites all of us to join in.” That’s this book in a nutshell. Greenberg is an acolyte of Jane Jacobs who is skeptical of megaprojects and believes post-war city planning that emphasized the automobile was a serious wrong turn. There’s a great introductory chapter walking out of the downtown core towards the suburbs and seeing how built form and the street-level environment change, and not for the better. Greenberg’s spent a lifetime of urban planning trying to reintroduce those elements that made pre-auto cities vital, but in a new way that doesn’t succumb to nostalgia or stop progress. This book will be particularly relevant if you live in Toronto, but there is lots of content from other parts of North America too. You should come away feeling inspired and seeing creative solutions everywhere that could improve your city.

[Trisha Roberson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I look at city design in new ways after this book: how much open space is between buildings and the road? How do you create mixed use neighbourhoods and buildings? Howe much space is given to people vs cars? Wouldn't it be great if it were safe for kids to erode their bikes to school? 

Complicated sentence structure made it hard to follow at times, yet the ideas held within discussing the origins of "sustainability", how buildings learns (occupants making upgrades) and that the meaningful scale for cities is decades, not years. 

I think I was looking for more on design and less particular autobiography of the author's work, though interesting and gives context for their viewpoint. I found most examples to be Eurocentric and worried about the anti-"transient" language, which made me feel some people were less invited to the city experience than others.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, very readable overview of city planning and urban issues in the 20th century *and*a deep dive into the specifics of real projects, successful and not.

Greenberg has a long history in urban development, making even his smallest asides interesting. Just a few sentences mentioning how a successful "festival market" development in the 1980s sparked a North American fad made me understand how one washed up in Calgary in the early 90s.

Especially fascinating if you have a general familiarity with Toronto and have seen it change/not change over the years.

[Rebecca Malone · Rating 3 out of 5]

The topic -- urban design -- was quite interesting, and the author's experience is compelling, but the presentation could have been stronger. The writing seemed flat at times, with each city's story blurring with the next. I also found myself craving illustrations, but there were just a few grainy black and white photos. There were a number of typos. Probably stronger editing/design would have helped do this book justice. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it. The vision for human-friendly contemporary city planning is wonderful and achievable.

[Aida Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting! A couple spelling mistakes and the few pictures that were included were difficult to see as they were in black and white and grainy. Examples come solely from North America and Europe but that’s the authors experience. I could see how someone without some experience in a related field to cities would find it difficult to understand because of the complicated sentence structure.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts and ends strong, and the overall message is good. The middle gets a bit disjointed with a lot of stories of projects the author worked on that are a bit hard to visualize if you aren't familiar with the cities. 3.5 stars if that was an option

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Andrew Reeves · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy it and learned enough from it - there just didn’t seem to be a lot of connective tissue for my liking. Chapters felt very separated from each other with little to connect them.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a mixture of "war stories" from Greenberg's career and opinions on selected planning issues. The "war stories" part is more unique to Greenberg and thus more interesting (at least to me). For example, Greenberg and his colleagues revitalized a Toronto historic district with street furniture, crosswalks, small parks and street trees to make walking more interesting, as well as by narrowing a neighborhood street.

Greenberg, like many other urbanists, champions more walkable cities- an attitude I share. Much of his discussion addresses issues raised in many other books- though it still might be useful for someone unfamiliar with such issues. However, it is a little dated- he repeatedly emphasizes rising energy prices as a reason to make cities less car-dependent, but today energy prices are of course no longer rising. Similarly, he tends to treat community input as mostly a good thing- understandable five or ten years ago, but less so today when neighborhood opposition to new construction has helped urban housing prices spiral out of control.

[Du · Rating 4 out of 5]

The question goodreads reviews ask is "What did you think?", well in this case the book is designed to tell you what the author thinks (I suppose all books do that) about planning and community engagement. It was interesting to see how he takes the ideas of Jane Jacobs and the theme of City's can save the world, and makes the case for that ideal through urban design, as opposed to planning. Greenberg offers a wealth of insight and knowledge about integrating design elements into city building. His thesis is that design and integration of infrastructure into city building, planning and engineering become less about technical feasibility and more about improving the lives of citizens. Through that effort, city's can make lives better for those living and visiting them.

[Jeramey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good look at how cities have reinvented (or protected) themselves to create the vibrancy that enables them to thrive. Lots of examples from Greenberg's years of experience in the field, but perhaps not the depth I was hoping for with any individual one.

[Brian Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing look into how cities function, how they are built, and how we can do better. Highly recommended for anyone interested in these subjects, especially Torontonians.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who's interested in the livability of their city! Very readable, and lots of food for thought.

[Börkur Sigurbjörnsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting stories from the life of an urban planner. Good lessons for anyone who is interested in making people the centre of city design rather than the automobile. It is not the key reference about urban planning but an interesting autobiography.