Suggested Reading: Books

There are many outstanding books available to explain land use planning and community building. We highly recommend the following:

Crabgrass Frontier

Kenneth T. Jackson
Oxford University Press, 1985

The definitive history of suburban sprawl in the United States by a Columbia University professor. Eminently readable.

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier

Joel Garreau
New York, Doubleday, 1991

The author, a former reporter for the Washington Post, details how new, low density cities have sprung up on the fringes of traditional American cities. Clearly explains why America looks the way it does today.

Planning in the USA

Barry Cullingworth
New York: Routledge, 1997

Cullingworth was a professor from England who spent years teaching in Canada and the United States. An outstanding view of the American planning system from an outsider's perspective, and not at all boring.

Suburban Nation

Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck
New York: North Point Press, 2000

Duany, an architect and town planner from Miami, has led the crusade to rediscover the virtues of traditional towns and build more of them in thburge future. He designed the town of Seaside, Florida, the first pedestrian community in perhaps 50 years. Duany is the most vibrant, persuasive, and energetic spokesman for the "neo-traditional" or "New Urbanist" movement.

Asphalt Nation

Jane Holtz Kay
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997

A comprehensive review of the nation's decision since World War II to become totally car-dependent. Kay was architecture critic for The Nation magazine.

Holding Our Ground

Tom Daniels and Deborah Bowers
Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997

The definitive book on farmland preservation efforts in America.

A Pattern Language

Christopher Alexander and others
New York: Oxford University Press, 1977

A book revered by architects and town planners for more than 35 years, A Pattern Language contains 253 rules of thumb for creating warm and cozy places to live and work.

Comeback Cities

Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000

The authors argue persuasively that America's big cities — although they remain overwhelming poor and working class — are becoming good places to live, thanks to reduced crime, local housing initiatives, and increased immigration.

American Apartheid

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993

A definitive explanation of how blacks have become more segregated, over a longer period of time, than any other ethnic group in America.

The Great Good Place

Ray Oldenburg
New York: Paragon House, 1989

The author argues that when Americans adopted a low density lifestyle, they lost the sense of place and belonging that traditional neighborhoods provided.

New Visions for Metropolitan America

Anthony Downs
Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1994

One of the nation's leading experts on development patterns, Downs lists the reasons why many Americans prefer suburban sprawl over traditional cities, and the shortcomings of the new system.