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....

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....

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....

The arbitrary lines of zoning maps across the country have come to dictate where Americans may live and work, forcing cities into a pattern of growth that is segregated and sprawling....

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...

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

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

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...

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...

Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation's housing systems....

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...

National bestselling author of APOCALYPSE NEVER skewers progressives for the mishandling of America’s faltering cities. Progressives claimed they knew how to solve homelessness, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, progressives made those problems worse. Michael Shellenberger...

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....

No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as fourteenth-century poet Petrarch remarked, “another world.”....

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....

Based on research on skeletal remains from around the world, this book explores the history of humanity's experiment with the metropolis and looks at why our ancestors chose city life....

Take a charming and unexpected journey through the quirks of England's villages throughout the ages in the excellent company of Dr Ben Robinson, expert archaeologist....

Miami is not just a portrait of a city, but a masterly study of immigration and exile, passion, hypocrisy, and political violence....

Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of an extraordinary story of how one city made the modern world—and how we all remain inescapably Viennese....

When a middle-class kid from the suburbs was caught using Facebook to distribute firearms bought legally at Indiana gun shows to notorious gangsters across the border - was he a kingpin or a scapegoat? Find out more....

Colburn and Aldern seek to explain the substantial regional variation in rates of homelessness in cities across the United States. In a departure from many analytical approaches, the authors shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area....

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, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions....

Truly unforgettable, The New York Nobody Knows will forever change how you view the world's greatest city....

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....