Urban Planning

Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks and their accessibility. Many professional practitioners of urban planning, especially practitioners with the title "urban planner" study urban planning education, while some paraprofessional practitioners are educated in urban stud ...more

Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age
Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile
Borderlines: A History of Europe, Told from the Edges
52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City, 1986-1990
The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset
Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity
Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places
A Paradise of Small Houses: The Evolution, Devolution, and Potential Rebirth of Urban Housing
The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
The Northeast Corridor: The Trains, the People, the History, the Region
Mapmatics: How We Navigate the World Through Numbers
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
The Image of the City
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
Cities for People
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
The High Cost of Free Parking
Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution
Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)
How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity

Ray Oldenburg
“ The course of urban development in America is pushing the individual toward that line seperating proud independence from pitiable isolation. ”
― Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community

Jeff Speck
“ [...] most American cities have been designed or redesigned principally around the assumption of universal automotive use, resulting in obligatory car ownership, typically one per adult—starting at age sixteen. In these cities, and in most of our nation, the car is no longer an instrument of freedom, but rather a bulky, expensive, and dangerous prosthetic device, a prerequisite to viable citizenship. ”
― Jeff Speck, Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

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Tags contributing to this page include: urban-planning, city-planning, town-planning, urban-development, and urban-policy