No comments about New Urban Housing.

5 comments about Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods.

1. Although I haven't purchased this book, I have read a copy that I borrowed from a library.
   
   This is a very practical book. It is nice to know that there is a way in which suburbanites can become less car-dependent, and that you don't have to live in a city's downtown core to become less car-dependent! I also like the idea of suburbs becoming more like traditional towns surrounding each big city. If suburbs were like traditional towns, they would be much more pleasant and more interesting places to live in.



2. "Researchers have demonstrated that a feeling of community reduces suburban depression."
   
   The first pictures I observed upon opening this book were of a lovely neighborhood in much need of comfort and the beautiful results after the streets had been lined with trees. Sidewalks had also been created and pathways up to each front porch created a very inviting environment. The trees shaded the walkways and people enjoyed riding their bikes down the streets. The contrast was eye opening and the results very comforting. You can imagine the people living in this area finally feeling like they were home.
   
   The contents include:
   
   The Changing Face of Suburbia
   Reinventing Our Neighborhoods for Health, Profit, and Community
   Imagining a Sustainable Neighborhood
   How to Remodel a Neighborhood
   Germination: First Steps
   Leafing Out: Bolder Ideas
   Your Neighborhood Blossoms: Boldest Steps
   Suburban Revitalization I: Can This Dream Become a Reality?
   Suburban Revitalization II: Making Bold Dreams Come True
   Taking Care in the Neighborhood
   
   This book helps to emphasize the isolation of the typical suburban house and shows how the community design seems to emphasize private space instead of community. This promotes a lack of connection. Could the way we live promote depression and a lack of friendships? Could the way we build communities lessen domestic violence, encourage community interaction and promote a general feeling of well-being?
   
   Like Feng Shui, this book gives ideas for building or restoring neighborhoods to promote happiness and to reduce stress. While some say we are not a product of our environment, it only takes a little research to find out that where there is more hope and a greater sense of community, humans seem to thrive.
   
   "...research reveals that in a closely knit community, levels of serotonin (a natural anti-depressant) are higher, so the neighborhood is collectively more optimistic and energetic." ~pg. 26
   
   The transformations in communities is revealed in pictures that explore the role of nature in our comfort level. Would you rather live behind high brick walls or enjoy a more peaceful and serene landscape of short fences and flowered walkways? In one section, an alleyway between living spaces is transformed into a little piece of heaven.
   
   Some of the features include:
   
   Ten Basic Design Principles for Remodeling Neighborhoods
   How to Sponsor Community Dinners
   Neighborhood Clubs
   Organic Gardens
   Replacing asphalt with porous pavers - to reduce heat absorption
   
   As a child, I remember two types of homes. One with a backyard, tightly fenced in, and another with wide-open spaces and easy access to walking through community spaces. I can tell you, I preferred the latter.
   
   This book is filled with wisdom and great advice for city planners and I've seen the idea of producing an edible landscape work efficiently in some areas. As a child we used to pick fruit off trees on the walk home from school. It is a dream that can come true and this book has many ideas that once implemented will improve the lives of everyone in the community. By reading this book, you may also decide to move to a location that values these ideas.
   
   ~The Rebecca Review
   Currently living in an area without fences and lovely tree-lined walkways



3. Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods is a "self-help" book for urban and suburban neighborhoods. The suburbs are often car-dependent, land-hungry, strictly residential neighborhoods that are often isolated from schools, workplaces and civic centers. They often lack convenient links to parks and mass transportation and are typically not developed in ways conducive to meeting people.

   But, these challenges provide numerous opportunities for positive change! People can reinvent their neighborhoods based on economic, environmental, and social values. Superbia! provides a checklist of Easy, Bolder, and Boldest Steps that can lead to safer, friendlier, livelier, healthier, more productive, diverse and vibrant neighborhoods. Neighbors can chose the steps they think will create a stronger sense of place and connection to people, nature, and culture.

   Easy Steps include sponsoring community dinners, establishing a community newsletter, and creating car and van pools for work commutes. Some neighbors have started book and investment clubs. For example, the Hillcrest Neighborhood Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sponsors a book club where neighbors "get together with fellow book enthusiasts to converse, discuss, and debate current bestsellers and classics," according to the group's website. Superbia! describes how there are hundreds of potential links between people within neighborhoods - links that can reduce time, human energy, and money spent by individuals on tight schedules as well as tight budgets. Easy Steps help people know one another better helping them discover links that lead to Bolder Steps.

   Planting a community garden or orchard is a Bolder Step. A composting project can serve the community garden and individual yards. Planting shade trees and windbreaks reduces energy costs, provides wildlife habitat, and increases property values. The Highlands Neighborhood in Littleton, Colorado, took a Bolder Step by tearing down fences. There was already a neighborhood tradition of parties in backyards, but neighbors decided to go a step further and took down their six-foot fences and opened the space to the neighbors creating a better sense of community.

   Boldest Steps include creating a community energy system and creating a common house and community-shared office. A Boldest Step was taken by New York's Darrow School when the failure of a conventional wastewater system provided an opportunity to install a Living Machine - a greenhouse-contained biological waste treatment facility that uses natural methods rather than harmful chemicals to recycle human waste. This system is also used as a hands-on laboratory for a variety of classes including science, chemistry, mathematics, and even art.

   With a history of how the suburbs came to be, 31 ways to make the suburbs better, examples of people who have created more sustainable neighborhoods, and a Resource Guide, readers can actively transform their suburbia into Superbia!

   Authors Chiras and Wann walk their talk. Chiras built and lives in a sustainable, solar home, and Dave Wann helped develop and lives in Harmony Village co-housing. They are also co-directors of the Sustainable Futures Society's Sustainable Suburbs project. Visit www.sustainablecolorado.org to learn more.

   Susan Bilo is an energy and resource conservation consultant with Sustainable By Design, LLC.




4. To inject life, fun and spontanaeity into North American suburbs will not be easy. Many neighbourhoods were built after WW II, when land and resources such as electricity and gasoline were plentiful and cheap; developers, government and the public were not very conscious of there being limits to, or issues with, creating vast car-centric suburbs. Now, many of us live in an energy-inefficient home on a long, straight street that forms one line in a grid that is populated by far more motor vehicles than pedestrians. Here, we easily grow fat and sedentary, often not knowing who lives one or two doors away.
   In Superbia!, the authors prescribe 31 steps to transform neighborhoods into places where there is a true sense of community, and where hard resources (e.g. cars, washing machines) can ultimately be shared by groups of families, and consumable resources (electricity, gasoline) are used in more environmentally responsible ways.
   The encouraging news is that neighborhoods in the USA, Europe and elsewhere have implemented these 31 steps. It often took a lot of persuasion of local politicians and bureaucrats to, for example, tear up existing streets to make them narrower, for the purpose of calming traffic. While the authors, to their credit, indicate that some of the 31 steps are plainly challenging to implement, and ential people changing their mental models, the authors at times neglect to address the role and response of some key stakeholders as neighborhoods transform themselves. For example, as I read the steps about removing fences between people's yards, and subsequent encouragement of kids in the neighborhood to congregate in certain areas of this newly-created 'open' space, I visualized the trepidation that the insurance companies covering these homes might have; what happens when you encourage everyone onto your property, and then someone gets hurt? In general terms, I felt that the book could at times have been more rigorous in tipping off the reader as to what to expect from other stakeholders relevant to the transformation process.
   I support what the authors propose. The main message I got from the book is: don't wait for politicians or developers to be the ones to build or retrofit neighborhoods that are environmentally sustainable, and offer building structures and juxtapositions to foster social cohesiveness; rather, strike out on your own, with the modest first step being to organize a potluck supper for your immediate neighbors. From there, transformation events can evolve; the authors have demonstrated, through numerous anecdotes, that this process can indeed work.



5. Superbia! is a strikingly simple book, proposing that neighbors can create
   friendlier and healthier neighborhoods by getting to know each other and
   working together. The beginning Steps it suggests are easy - things like
   having neighborhood potlucks and baby-sitting coops - but the advanced steps
   will take some real teamwork. You and your neighbors won't set up a
   neighborhood energy system or buy a house for use as a common building until
   a high level of trust is established. By the time the advanced steps are
   taken on, the neighborhood will be like an extended family, with all its
   benefits -- as well as liabilities.

   But Chiras and Wann argue that the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.
   For example, they don't propose a loss of privacy, but rather an increase in
   options and flexibility. What do we do when the car won't start, we go on
   vacation and the plants need watering, or we just need someone to talk to?
   Call a neighbor.

   This book is well-researched, documenting how neighborhoods took the shape
   they did, with wide streets, huge lawns, and barricade-like garage doors.
   The 50 million suburban homes in the U.S. (and all their associated
   infrastructure) are then seen in the book as ingredients for cooking up a
   better neighborhood. As the authors suggest, why can't we create common
   areas for the kids and a community garden by donating parcels of our
   backyards and creating a pathway where alleys used to be? Why can't we
   establish a neighborhood recycling system, a carpooling and even car-sharing
   system? Why shouldn't part of our yards also become low-maintenance, "edible
   landscapes" that provide cherries and grapes rather than just grass
   clippings?

   As the book compellingly asks, Why can't we work together to save time,
   money, and human energy, and in the process, have some fun? In the median
   income U.S. household budget, $3,000 a year could be saved if our costs for
   food, energy, entertainment, health, and transportation were reduced through
   neighborhood efforts that also meet an often- expressed need for a sense of
   community, and a sense of place.

   What Superbia! is about is basic improvements in the quality of our
   lifestyles. Less of an emphasis on buying our lives, and more on just living
   our lives. Far from being just a Utopia-like dream, the book's ideas are
   already being implemented in neighborhoods across the country, and several
   chapters in the book are dedicated to case studies of each Step - where and
   how it was implemented. Another series of chapters presents a fictitious
   neighborhood that walks the reader through the evolution of the Fox Run
   neighborhood, from suburbia to Superbia!

   If your neighborhood association needs a spark of energy, get a copy of this
   book and form a discussion group around it. At the very least, you'll
   emerge with a roster of neighbors and a fresh perspective on what a
   neighborhood can be.

3 comments about Beneath the Metropolis: The Secret Lives of Cities.

1. I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about the history and underworkings of the great cities of the world. It gave me a new appreciation for what goes in to the planning, creation and development of a major city.



2. I almost started by stating this book isn't for the average reader. But, I'm an average reader, and frankly I found the information within it fascinating. Coincidentally I lived in N.Y.C., and have a little more experience with its underground infrastructure than just having been a straphanger (subway rider). Mr. Marshall has a no nonsense writing style, and his research has resulted in much interesting information regarding what's buried beneath our feet. The history of how, and why things got, and get buried in the first place makes the book all the more enlightening. Especially the consideration that things get buried as a result of debris that accumulates over time, and how history is lost, and then sometimes rediscovered in the process of modernization.



3. A beautiful book, monumental piece of research, with clear and engaging prose and a great mix of maps, illustrations, capsule histories, lively facts, and timelines. If you ever stood over a manhole or at the dark edge of a subway tunnel and wondered, "What's down there?" then this book will tell you. Beneath the Metropolis describes what's underneath 12 world cities -- New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Mexico City, Paris, London, Rome, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow and Sydney. With pith and concision, Marshall details the infrastructure, the archeology and the geology. In Paris, we learn about the fossilized bones and the beautiful sewers and subways. In Rome, we tour the ancient ruins and rickety subway (did you know there was one?). In Beijing, we learn about the vast network of cold war tunnels that few visit. Marshall uses each city's underground to trace its history, politics and economics. It's a pleasure to learn how successful cities, like London or Paris, can take different approaches to infrastructure. As a fellow author and former Columbia classmate, I admire and envy Marshall's success in wrestling such a huge topic into a pleasurable masterpiece. Beneath the Metropolis is destined for many a reader's nightstand as well as planning and political offices and classrooms.
   
   --Christopher D. Ringwald, author of A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath (Oxford, 2007)

2 comments about Health and Community Design: The Impact Of The Built Environment On Physical Activity.

1. This is a very well written and presented book about the physical elements of our community design that compel us to discriminate certain forms of transportation over others (i.e., motorized over car). The implications are about health--getting enough "moderate" exercise each day. "Moderate" exercise is more accessible than the various forms of specialized exercises we have (i.e., sports teams, going to the gym). Exercise can be utilitarian in nature--it doesn't have to be specialized. For instance, transportation can be a form of exercise. When it is utilitarian--built into activities we have to be doing anyway--it saves time, instead of being "another thing to add to the schedule" it is killing two birds w/one stone.
   
   Certain features and designs in the built environment are more helpful in encouraging the general population to using forms of moderate exercise (i.e., walking, biking) as transportation.
   
   The idea of "utilitarian exercise" is cool--I wish they would have talked more about other (nontransportation) forms, such as gardening, etc.
   
   The book also contains an excellent but brief review of the history of community health and planning at the beginning--how "solving" the health problems of the past era have led to the health problems of this era. The goal this time is to find a real solution--not one that leads to different types of health problems all over again.
   
   Most satisfyingly, it is very well written and easy to read through. Any jargon is well-explained, and it is kept to a minimum. Based on quantitative science, it never (to my recollection) leaps to conclusions its data could not support--rather the authors highlight questions which the data produce and need to be pursued further.



2. This book is one of the first to address the relationship between suburban sprawl and Americans' sedentary habits. The authors point out:
   1) that Americans drive more and walk less than residents of other affluent nations
   2) that Americans have become more sedentary and fatter in recent decades
   3) that Americans exercise more when they live in more pedestrian-friendly environments, and
   4) that Americans are unable to walk as much as they would like because most American cities and suburbs are built by highway engineers and government planners to discourage pedestrian traffic; streets are too wide to safely walk, zoning codes mandated densities so low that shops are often not within walking distance of residences, and federal housing regulation has encouraged streets to be disconnected to each other that nearly all journeys require a stop at a high-speed, congested arterial.
   Because this book was built in 2003, the authors devote relatively little space to the connection between sprawl, lack of exercise and obesity. In recent years, some studies have begun to document this connection, and I hope that the authors come out with a second edition addressing these issues.

No comments about A Better Way to Zone: Ten Principles to Create More Livable Cities.

1 comments about The Architectural Pattern Book: A Tool for Building Great Neighborhoods.

1. Most of us like architectural books because we think, or possibly just dream of building our own ULTIMATE house. Here, however, is a book not on building a house, but on building an entire neighborhood.
   
   It starts with a bit of history, the pattern books written in roman times. It brings them up to date with a survey of several American neighborhoods dating from turn of the century times. And finally it goes on to show what the authors have done as they designed blocks, sub-divisions and the like. It is intended to show what can be done to replace the common cookie cutter houses common in recent developments. It is a fascinating book that leads to thinking.

2 comments about Time-Saver Standards Site Construction Details Manual.

1. This is a great book that I use all the time in my design work. It's organized really well making it very easy to use. Like Gang Chen mentioned in his review, you can't just copy and apply each detail as is, you have to adapt it to your specific climate and design program. That said, the details are a great starting point. I recommend this book to not only landscape architects working in large LA firms, but also to the residential designers who incorporate a lot of detailing in their plans.



2. Detailing is difficult for young design professionals. College education does not cover enough detail design, the only ways to learn how to develop details are: 1) learn through working experience in design offices; 2) teach yourself by reading good books.
   
   "Time-Saver Standards Site Construction Details Manual" can alleviate this problem. When they wrote this book, Nicholas T. Dines, FASLA was a professor and director for the graduate MLA program at the University of Massachusetts, and already had 32 years of professional experience. Kyle Brown was an assistant professor of Landscape Architecture at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and held a Bachelor and a Master degree in Landscape Architecture and was a Ph. D candidate in regional planning.
   
   "Time-Saver Standards Site Construction Details Manual" covers athletic surfaces (natural and artificial turf, athletic paving), curbs (asphalt, brick, wood, stone and concrete curbs), drainage inlets (catch basins, area drains, trench drains), drainage swales (concrete, stone and vegetated swales), lighting (accent, pedestrian and vehicular lighting), paving (aggregate, asphalt, brick, concrete, stone, wood and synthetic paving, reinforce turf), paving dividers (brick, concrete and stone paving dividers), paving edges, paving joints, pedestrian ramps, planting, ponds, retaining structures, seatwalls, steps, and walls. There is also a useful detail index at the end.
   
   The details in this book are useful, but you still have to adapt them per your specific project condition. For example, some of the paving details call for "reinforcement as required." If you just copy and use these details, I guarantee you'll get change orders for your job. You should adapt these details per the soils report and tenant or developer criteria of your job and / or consult your structural engineer to actually specify what kind of reinforcement you are using for these details in your job.
   
   "Time-Saver Standards Site Construction Details Manual" has 416 pages and 350 common site details. It is a good Site Construction reference book for architects, landscape architects and engineers. Like any other books, it'll not cover every situation for your job. As a design professional, you should still review and adapt these details for your job.
   
   Gang Chen, Author of "LEED AP Exam Guide" & "Planting Design Illustrated." LEED AP, AIA
   

1 comments about Pamphlet Architecture 12: Building; Machines (Pamphlet Architecture).

1. Wow! A professor brought this book to class and I had to have it! Featured are early works by Neil Denari--Neil, I love you! (a personal God of mine/director of Sci-Arc) Krueger and Kaplan, Peter Pfau, Wes Jones...a theorists dream! The book is so thin, that I go back and forth in it wishing there were more! A definite must have if you're into theory!

No comments about The University and Urban Revival: Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets (The City in the Twenty-First Century).

1 comments about Shopping Environments: Evolution, Planning and Design.

1. The author has displayed a full knowledge of appropriate methodology and comprehensive approach to the subject.
   Although the content is limited to the UK case, the book is full of overwhelming information for an expert who wants to compare the cases with other developments elsewhere.
   It is an example of "country study" for the shopping centre industry that should be repeeated by other writers in other markets.
   It could have been useful to have a c0-author specializing onthe economics-marketing side of the subject.
   Dr Sukru Aslanyurek