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Confessions of a Recovering Engineer
- Transportation for a Strong Town
- Narrated by: Christopher Douyard
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
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Confessions of a Recovering Engineer
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Publisher's summary
In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn, Jr., delivers an accessible and engaging exploration of America's transportation system, laying bare the reasons why it no longer works as it once did, and how to modernize transportation to better serve local communities.
You'll discover real-world examples of poor design choices and how those choices have dramatic and tragic effects on the lives of the people who use them. You'll also find case studies and examples of design improvements that have revitalized communities and improved safety.
This important book shows you: the values of the transportation professions, how they are applied in the design process, and how those priorities differ from those of the public; how the standard approach to transportation ensures the maximum amount of traffic congestion possible is created each day, and how to fight that congestion on a budget; and bottom-up techniques for spending less and getting higher returns on transportation projects, all while improving quality of life for residents. Perfect for anyone interested in why transportation systems work - and fail to work - the way they do, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer is a fascinating insider's peek behind the scenes of America's transportation systems.
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- By: Henry Petroski
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 54
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly 65,000 bridges in the United States as 'structurally deficient'. This crisis - and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis - shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well put
- By Lawrence on 08-10-17
By: Henry Petroski
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A Brief History of Motion
- From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
Tom Standage's fleet-footed and surprising global histories have delighted fans and sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Now, he returns with a provocative account of an overlooked form of technology - personal transportation - and explores how it has shaped societies and cultures over millennia. Beginning around 3,500 BCE with the wheel - a device that didn't catch on until a couple thousand years after its invention - Standage zips through the eras of horsepower, trains, and bicycles, revealing how each successive mode of transit embedded itself in the world we live in.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen
- By CKerb on 11-09-21
By: Tom Standage
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Happy City
- Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design
- By: Charles Montgomery
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 378
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 339
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 339
After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tower dwelling improvements on the car dependence of sprawl?
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great book-terrible narrator
- By Amazon Customer on 02-04-19
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The Death and Life of Great American Cities
- 50th Anniversary Edition
- By: Jane Jacobs, Jason Epstein - introduction
- Narrated by: Donna Rawlins
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 684
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 567
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 559
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 descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments."
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic text, dull on audio
- By Meghan on 02-13-15
By: Jane Jacobs, and others
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Green Metropolis
- What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability
- By: David Owen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 50
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Story4 out of 5 stars 50
In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.
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2 out of 5 stars
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A stupid and dangerously short sighted view
- By Gare&Sophia on 11-13-12
By: David Owen
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Triumph of the City
- How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
- By: Edward Glaeser
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 426
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 353
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 348
America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the three percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly. Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Urbanophile Brain Candy
- By Clay Downing on 12-18-15
By: Edward Glaeser
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The 99% Invisible City
- A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design
- By: Kurt Kohlstedt, Roman Mars
- Narrated by: Roman Mars
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 598
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 494
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 494
99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The 99% Invisible City
- By Louise Schraa on 01-09-21
By: Kurt Kohlstedt, and others
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What to Do When Machines Do Everything
- How to Get Ahead in a World of AI, Algorithms, Bots, and Big Data
- By: Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, Ben Pring
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 269
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 238
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 237
What to Do When Machines Do Everything is a guidebook to succeeding in the next generation of the digital economy. When systems running on artificial intelligence can drive our cars, diagnose medical patients, and manage our finances more effectively than humans, it raises profound questions on the future of work and how companies compete.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Assumes that machine learning will grow very slow
- By Nathan Burnham on 05-06-17
By: Malcolm Frank, and others
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The Well-Tempered City
- What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations, and Human Nature Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life
- By: Jonathan F. P. Rose
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 62
Cities are birthplaces of civilization; centers of culture, trade, and progress; cauldrons of opportunity - and the home of 80 percent of the world's population by 2050. As the 21st century progresses, metropolitan areas will bear the brunt of global megatrends such as climate change, natural resource depletion, population growth, income inequality, mass migrations, and education and health disparities, among many others.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The best way to save the future is to look at the past
- By Kate on 10-01-22
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Crabgrass Frontier
- The Suburbanization of the United States
- By: Kenneth T. Jackson
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
This first full-scale history of the development of the American suburb examines how "the good life" in America came to be equated with the a home of one's own surrounded by a grassy yard and located far from the urban workplace. Integrating social history with economic and architectural analysis, and taking into account such factors as the availability of cheap land, inexpensive building methods, and rapid transportation, Kenneth Jackson chronicles the phenomenal growth of the American suburb from the middle of the 19th century to the present day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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There is so much to think about here.
- By Richard McKown on 06-25-23
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Driving Honda
- Inside the World’s Most Innovative Car Company
- By: Jeffrey Rothfeder
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 78
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 77
For decades there have been two iconic Japanese auto companies. One has been endlessly studied and written about. The other has been generally underappreciated and misunderstood. Until now. Since its birth as a motorcycle company in 1949, Honda has steadily grown into the world’s fifth largest automaker and top engine manufacturer, as well as one of the most beloved, most profitable, and most consistently innovative multinational corporations.
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3 out of 5 stars
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it was ok.
- By chris p on 11-16-18
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Autonomy
- The Quest to Build the Driverless Car—and How It Will Reshape Our World
- By: Lawrence D. Burns, Christopher Shulgan
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 272
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 240
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 239
In Autonomy, former GM executive and current advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car project Lawrence Burns offers a sweeping history of the race to make the driverless car a reality. In the past decade, Silicon Valley companies like Google, Tesla and Uber have positioned themselves to revolutionize the way we move around by developing driverless vehicles while traditional auto companies like General Motors, Ford, and Daimler have been fighting back by partnering by with new tech start-ups.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Easy listen, non-technical perspective
- By James S. on 09-14-18
By: Lawrence D. Burns, and others
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The End of the Suburbs
- Where the American Dream is Moving
- By: Leigh Gallagher
- Narrated by: Jessica Geffen
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4 out of 5 stars 65
For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live. In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative, but the title is a lie
- By Marie on 08-27-13
By: Leigh Gallagher
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The Complacent Class
- The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
- By: Tyler Cowen
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 297
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Story4 out of 5 stars 252
Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs. The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist, and best-selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition - we're working harder than ever to avoid change.
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5 out of 5 stars
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MUST READ
- By RJW on 05-06-17
By: Tyler Cowen
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The Great Reset
- How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity
- By: Richard Florida
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 80
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 78
We tend to view prolonged economic downturns, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Long Depression of the late 19th century, in terms of the crisis and pain they cause. But history teaches us that these great crises also represent opportunities to remake our economy and society and to generate whole new eras of economic growth and prosperity.
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1 out of 5 stars
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glorification of City Life
- By Ryan Riggs on 11-25-20
By: Richard Florida
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AI Superpowers
- China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
- By: Kai-Fu Lee
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,327
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,661
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,659
In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Compelled to listen at 2x speed
- By LEE on 09-26-18
By: Kai-Fu Lee
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Strong Towns
- A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
- By: Charles L. Marohn Jr.
- Narrated by: Matthew Boston
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 444
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 381
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Story5 out of 5 stars 378
Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he cofounded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Where are the peer-reviewed sources and studies?
- By Amazon Customer on 07-20-21
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Escaping the Housing Trap
- The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis
- By: Charles L. Marohn Jr., Daniel Herriges
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall