The complexity of cities have posed a challenge to all who choose to write about them in a comprehensive way. On the one hand, this can result in lengthy books which draw their authors across a vast intellectual terrain. Patrick Geddes’s Cities in Evolution exceeds 400 pages, and the paperback edition of Lewis Mumford’s magnum opus The City […]
Ten Books of 2010-2011
A few years back, I was asked to name the books that had made the biggest impact on me. Three came immediately to mind: Jane Jacob’s Death and Life of Great American Cities, Tom Sugrue’s Origins of the Urban Crisis, and Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Beyond those, I struggled to think of more […]
Review: Leinberger’s The Option of Urbanism
The newest buzzword among urban scholars just might be Christopher Leinberger’s “walkable urbanism,” which he contrasts with our country’s postwar “drivable sub-urban” pattern of development. In this post I review the University of Michigan professor’s latest book The Option of Urbanism and find a refreshing, if optimistic analysis of our recent urban history. Find out what I think sets this book apart from its competition, and why Leinberger thinks reforming Wall Street’s Real Estate Investment Trusts may be the key to cultivating genuine urbanism in American again.
Wanted: Photos of Google’s Book Digitization Project
I’ve engaged in some speculation before about the size and character of Google’s effort to digitize the nearly 5 million volumes in the University of Michigan library as part of their plan to digitize the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Oxford, and The New York Public Library. I’ve also […]
Discuss D.C. Neighborhood ‘Turf Wars’ Thursday
This event featuring a new book about the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood caught my eye. It’s the first I’ve heard of the book which sounds quite interesting. As a note, Mt. Pleasant was also the subject of Brett Williams’ 1988 work, Upscaling Downtown: Stalled Gentrification in Washington DC, meaning it has been “gentrifying” in somebody’s mind […]
My Vacation in Links
I just returned from visiting my girlfriend Libby in Michigan and parents in Maine. In Michigan Libby and I stayed at the Inn on Ferry Street, ate a Coney dog, saw a Tigers game, browsed the shelves in John King Books North, and spent time in Ferndale and Royal Oak. I noticed construction has begun […]
Just Added
A revised permanent page of books about DC. Feel free to post comments or suggestions over there in the comments. There’s a permanent link to the page on the sidebar under “Hot Topics.”