Genres > Cities

Urbanism

Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment.

Most Read This Week Tagged "Urbanism"

Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet

Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership

52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time

Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress―and How to Bring It Back

Engineering in Plain Sight: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Constructed Environment

Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town

Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle

Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis

Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It

Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles

Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource

More most read this week tagged "urbanism"...

Lists

The Seven Lamps of Architecture by John Ruskin

101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick

2016 holiday gift books for builders, architects, designers

16 books — 5 voters

Writing About Architecture by Alexandra Lange

NextCity.org Book Club (fiction and nonfiction)

27 books — 24 voters

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

Queen City Urbanist Bookclub Books

6 books — 1 voter

Confessions of a Recovering Engineer by Charles L. Marohn Jr.

Escaping the Housing Trap by Charles L. Marohn Jr.

The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup

Strong Towns Vancouver Faves

11 books — 1 voter

Mayor of the Tenderloin by Alison Owings

Race for Profit by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

A World More Concrete by Nathan Daniel Beau Connolly

American Housing and Land Use-related (nonfiction)

70 books — 9 voters

The Lost Subways of North America by Jake Berman

Building the Cycling City by Melissa Bruntlett

Structuring Intergovernmental Coordination by Timothy Almy

Transit Reading List

21 books — 2 voters

Related Genres

Geography
Cities

Featured News & Interviews

Books to Celebrate Black History Month (and Read All Year-Round)

Read »

Quotes Tagged “Urbanism”

“ The development of an informal public life depends people finding and enjoying one another outside the cash nexus. ”
― Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community

2 likes

“ The charm of a city, now we come to it, is not unlike the charm of flowers. It partly depends on seeing time creep across it. Charm needs to be fleeting. Nothing could be less palatable than a museum-city propped up by prosthetic devices of concrete. Paris is not in danger of becoming a museum-city, thanks to the restlessness and greed of promoters. Yet their frenzy to demolish everything is less objectionable than their clumsy determination to raise housing projects that cannot function withou The charm of a city, now we come to it, is not unlike the charm of flowers. It partly depends on seeing time creep across it. Charm needs to be fleeting. Nothing could be less palatable than a museum-city propped up by prosthetic devices of concrete. Paris is not in danger of becoming a museum-city, thanks to the restlessness and greed of promoters. Yet their frenzy to demolish everything is less objectionable than their clumsy determination to raise housing projects that cannot function without the constant presence of an armed police force… All these banks, all these glass buildings, all these mirrored facades are the mark of a reflected image. You can no longer see what’s happening inside, you become afraid of the shadows. The city becomes abstract, reflecting only itself. People almost seem out of place in this landscape. Before the war, there were nooks and crannies everywhere. Now people are trying to eliminate shadows, straighten streets. You can’t even put up a shed without the personal authorization of the minister of culture. When I was growing up, my grandpa built a small house. Next door the youth club had some sheds, down the street the local painter stored his equipment under some stretched-out tarpaulin. Everybody added on. It was telescopic. A game. Life wasn’t so expensive — ordinary people would live and work in Paris. You’d see masons in blue overalls, painters in white ones, carpenters in corduroys. Nowadays, just look at Faubourg Sainte-Antoine — traditional craftsmen are being pushed out by advertising agencies and design galleries. Land is so expensive that only huge companies can build, and they have to build ‘huge’ in order to make it profitable. Cubes, squares, rectangles. Everything straight, everything even. Clutter has been outlawed. But a little disorder is a good thing. That’s where poetry lurks. We never needed promoters to provide us, in their generosity, with ‘leisure spaces.’ We invented our own. Today there’s no question of putting your own space together, the planning commission will shut it down. Spontaneity has been outlawed. People are afraid of life. ...more ”
― Robert Doisneau, Paris

8 likes

More quotes...