Urban

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields....

The crime-infested intersection of West Fayette and Monroe Streets is well-known--and cautiously avoided--by most of Baltimore. But this notorious corner's 24-hour open-air drug market provides the economic fuel for a dying neighborhood. David Simon, an award-winning author and crime reporter...

Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the...

Turkey's greatest living novelist guides us through the monuments and lost paradises, dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets, and waterways of Istanbul - the city of his birth and the home of his imagination....

Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground - the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings....

Great cities are complex, chaotic and colossal. These are cities that dominate the world stage and define eras; where ideas flourish, revolutions are born and history is made. Through 10 unique cities, from the founding of ancient capitals to buzzing modern megacities, Paul Strathern explores...

Report from Engine Co. 82 is the story of one company of New York firefighters...

This 10th anniversary edition of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller includes a new introduction and afterword by the author. Chronicling the lifelong friendship between a busy sales executive and a disadvantaged young boy that began with one small gesture of kindness, this is a “ray of...

In this no-holds-barred treatise, Donald Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems....

World-renowned urban engineering expert Sybil Derrible reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations of the foundational systems that make our societies function.

A surprising and revealing look at how today's elite view their own wealth and place in society....

Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability....

The classic, brilliant, best-selling account of the rise of the world's slums, where, according to the United Nations, one billion people now live....

London Orbital is Iain Sinclair's voyage of discovery into the unloved outskirts of the city....

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history....

There is currently an epidemic of 'affluenza' throughout the world - an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month period, best-selling author Oliver James travelled around the world to try and...

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson and journalist Susan Salter Reynolds explore how to bring into being systems that transform human experience and make the world more livable and sustainable....

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the hosts of The War on Cars podcast, a searing indictment of how cars ruin everything—and what we can do to fight back When the very first cars rolled off production lines, they were a technological marvel, predicted to make life easier and better for all Americans...

In the early 80s, Mark Fleischman reopened Studio 54, the world's most glamorous and notorious nightclub, after it was closed down by the State of New York. Ten thousand people showed up that night....

Find out how to uncover the hidden talents, assets, and abilities in your neighborhood and bring them together to create a vibrant and joyful community....

More than two decades after Darrell Cannon was tortured into a false confession of murder, he was finally released from prison with hardly an apology. He wasn’t the only one with a story to tell....

Spiralling from the outer limits of the Overground to the pinnacle of the Shard, Iain Sinclair encounters a metropolis stretched beyond recognition. The vestiges of secret tunnels, the ghosts of saints and lost poets lie buried by developments, the cycling revolution and Brexit....

This urgent exploration of why American society is in trouble—and how to fix it, starting with the places we call home—is an “essential and engaging read for everyone who wants to better understand the challenges facing our cities, towns and our nation.” (Richard Florida, author of The...

In this wide-ranging, character-driven audiobook, science-journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days, exploring the profound and sometimes unexpected ways that they shape our lives....

In 1973, Roseann Quinn, an Irish-Catholic teacher at a school for deaf children, was killed in New York City after bringing a man home to her apartment from an Upper West Side pub. The crime made headlines and the ensuing case quickly evolved into a cultural phenomenon....