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Palaces for the People
- How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
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Publisher's summary
“A comprehensive, entertaining, and compelling argument for how rebuilding social infrastructure can help heal divisions in our society and move us forward.” (Jon Stewart)
Named one of the best books of the year by NPR.
“Engaging.” (Mayor Pete Buttigieg, The New York Times Book Review, editors’ choice)
We are living in a time of deep divisions. Americans are sorting themselves along racial, religious, and cultural lines, leading to a level of polarization that the country hasn’t seen since the Civil War. Pundits and politicians are calling for us to come together and find common purpose. But how, exactly, can this be done?
In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, childcare centers, churches, and parks where crucial connections are formed. Interweaving his own research with examples from around the globe, Klinenberg shows how “social infrastructure” is helping to solve some of our most pressing societal challenges. Richly reported and ultimately uplifting, Palaces for the People offers a blueprint for bridging our seemingly unbridgeable divides.
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.
“Just brilliant!” (Roman Mars, 99% Invisible)
“The aim of this sweeping work is to popularize the notion of ‘social infrastructure' - the ‘physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact'.... Here, drawing on research in urban planning, behavioral economics, and environmental psychology, as well as on his own fieldwork from around the world, [Eric Klinenberg] posits that a community’s resilience correlates strongly with the robustness of its social infrastructure. The numerous case studies add up to a plea for more investment in the spaces and institutions (parks, libraries, childcare centers) that foster mutual support in civic life.” (The New Yorker)
“Palaces for the People - the title is taken from the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s description of the hundreds of libraries he funded - is essentially a calm, lucid exposition of a centuries-old idea, which is really a furious call to action.” (New Statesman)
“Clear-eyed...fascinating.” (Psychology Today)
Critic reviews
“If America appears fractured at the national level, the author suggests, it can be mended at the local one. This is an engrossing, timely, hopeful read, nothing less than a new lens through which to view the world and its current conflicts.” (Booklist, starred, review)
“At a time when polarization is weakening our democracy, Eric Klinenberg takes us on a tour of the physical spaces that bind us together and form the basis of civic life. We care about each other because we bump up against one another in a community garden or on the playground or at the library. These are not virtual experiences; they’re real ones, and they’re essential to our future. This wonderful book shows us how democracies thrive.” (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die)
“Reading Palaces for the People is an amazing experience. As an architect, I know very well the importance of building civic places: concert halls, libraries, museums, universities, public parks, all places open and accessible, where people can get together and share experiences. To create good places for people is essential, and this is what I share with Klinenberg: We both believe that beauty, this kind of beauty, can save the world.” (Renzo Piano)
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Story
Nearly every US city would like to be more walkable - for reasons of health, wealth, and the environment - yet few are taking the proper steps to get there. The goals are often clear, but the path is seldom easy. Jeff Speck’s follow-up to his best-selling Walkable City is the resource that cities and citizens need to usher in an era of renewed street life. Walkable City Rules is a doer’s guide to making change in cities, and making it now.
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Excellent compendium for pro and enthusiast alike
- By Ostyn on 02-23-19
By: Jeff Speck
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Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated
- The Collapse and Revival of American Community
- By: Robert D. Putnam
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 18 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on vast new data that reveal Americans' changing behavior, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and how social structures - whether they be PTA, church, or political parties - have disintegrated. Until the publication of this groundbreaking work, no one had so deftly diagnosed the harm that these broken bonds have wreaked on our physical and civic health, nor had anyone exalted their fundamental power in creating a society that is happy, healthy, and safe.
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Long Long book
- By William S. Gross on 11-13-17
By: Robert D. Putnam
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Heat Wave
- A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Second Edition with a New Preface
- By: Eric Klinenberg
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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On Thursday, July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index, which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body, would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a "social autopsy," examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been.
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Informative and riveting personal accounts
- By Amazon Customer on 06-28-23
By: Eric Klinenberg
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How to Kill a City
- Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood
- By: Peter Moskowitz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The term gentrification has become a buzzword to describe the changes in urban neighborhoods across the country, but we don't realize just how threatening it is. It means more than the arrival of trendy shops, much-maligned hipsters, and expensive lattes. The very future of American cities as vibrant, equitable spaces hangs in the balance. How to Kill a City takes listeners from the kitchen tables of hurting families who can no longer afford their homes to the corporate boardrooms and political backrooms where destructive housing policies are devised.
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Unproductive criticism.
- By Aaron Rogers on 06-01-18
By: Peter Moskowitz
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Streetfight
- Handbook for an Urban Revolution
- By: Janette Sadik-Khan, Seth Solomonow
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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As New York City's transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan managed the seemingly impossible and transformed the streets of one of the world's greatest, toughest cities into dynamic spaces safe for pedestrians and bikers. Her approach was dramatic and effective: Simply painting a part of the street to make it into a plaza or bus lane not only made the street safer, but it also lessened congestion and increased foot traffic, which improved the bottom line of businesses.
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Is road design interesting now?
- By Jacob on 05-19-23
By: Janette Sadik-Khan, and others
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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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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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Fantastic text, dull on audio
- By Meghan on 02-13-15
By: Jane Jacobs, and others
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Carmageddon
- How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It
- By: Daniel Knowles
- Narrated by: Christian Coulson
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The automobile was one of the most miraculous inventions of the 20th century. It promised freedom, style, and utility. But sometimes, rather than improving our lives technology just makes everything worse. Over the past century cars have filled the air with toxic pollutants and fueled climate change. Cars have stolen public space and made our cities uglier, dirtier, less useful, and more unequal. Cars have caused tens of millions of deaths and injuries. They have wasted our time and our money.
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Quick Paced, mindful of biases
- By Colin Briskey on 01-15-24
By: Daniel Knowles
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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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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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Where are the peer-reviewed sources and studies?
- By Amazon Customer on 07-20-21
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Arbitrary Lines
- How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
- By: M. Nolan Gray
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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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. The good news is that reform is in the air, with states across the country critically reevaluating zoning. In cities as diverse as Minneapolis, Fayetteville, and Hartford, the key pillars of zoning are under fire, with apartment bans being scrapped, minimum lot sizes dropping, and off-street parking requirements disappearing altogether.
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End Zoning
- By Vance V. Ginn on 04-03-24
By: M. Nolan Gray
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Modern Romance
- An Investigation
- By: Aziz Ansari, Eric Klinenberg
- Narrated by: Aziz Ansari, Eric Klinenberg
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated?
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Entertaining and informative
- By ty on 08-23-15
By: Aziz Ansari, and others
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A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
- Center for Environmental Structure Series
- By: Christopher Alexander
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 29 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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You can use this book to design a house for yourself with your family; you can use it to work with your neighbors to improve your town and neighborhood; you can use it to design an office, a workshop, or a public building. And you can use it to guide you in the actual process of construction.
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Life changing
- By abdelrahmanazmi on 08-29-22
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Paved Paradise
- How Parking Explains the World
- By: Henry Grabar
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Parking, quite literally, has a death grip on America: each year a handful of Americans are tragically killed by their fellow citizens over parking spots. But even when we don’t resort to violence, we routinely do ridiculous things for parking, contorting our professional, social, and financial lives to get a spot. Indeed, in the century since the advent of the car, we have deformed—and in some cases demolished—our homes and our cities in a Sisyphean quest for cheap and convenient car storage.
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Would recommend
- By Jamie W. on 05-14-23
By: Henry Grabar
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Homelessness Is a Housing Problem
- How Structural Factors Explain U.S. Patterns
- By: Gregg Colburn, Clayton Page Aldern
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In Homelessness Is a Housing Problem, Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page 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, Colburn and Aldern shift their focus from the individual experiencing homelessness to the metropolitan area. Using accessible statistical analysis, they test a range of conventional beliefs about what drives the prevalence of homelessness in a given city and find that none explain the regional variation observed across the country.
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NO PDF! NO CHARTS!
- By P. Dean on 06-02-23
By: Gregg Colburn, and others
What listeners say about Palaces for the People
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Theresa G Coble
- 09-03-23
Appreciate the Vision and Clear-eyed Look at Where to Next
A multi-sector look at a critical piece of our society, past and present, and an overlooked and under-appreciated solution for what ails us and where we need to focus our efforts.
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- Robert Hammond
- 01-06-19
So good
I work in the field of parks and public space and this is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Or actually listen to.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Castiel
- 08-27-19
Great stories to illustrate the author's points
Well supported and researched. Kept me engaged and wanting more. A great introduction to the importance of infrastructure in placemaking.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-10-19
We must act now !
I am inspired to work for our organization to focus on becoming more effective in promoting the environment where sociol infrastructure is created.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Marian Angele
- 03-18-22
essential read
comprehensive, well researched and a road map for how to spend the new infrastructure bill
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- William Brown
- 10-08-18
Essential reading
This book should be required reading for all who wish to improve people’s lives, but especially for design professionals and policy makers.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Jaime Wright
- 08-15-22
Moving analysis of public life and the foundations
I enjoyed listening and learning about spatial justice, community, and what it would take to bolster spaces of disinvestment as well as create opportunities for a greater union in our divided times.
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- Peter Erickson
- 02-05-19
Loved this.
A love letter to public spaces: libraries, public swimming pools, community gardens, parks, etc. that makes clear their ongoing importance for building community and changing lives. This is going to be an important book. Really well read by Rob Shapiro.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Renee B.
- 11-16-20
Incredibly timely, interesting, inspiring book
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it to be both revealing (re: how we got to the place we are currently in) and also inspiring (re: how to get to a better place). It’s 1000% opened my eyes to better understanding this world and how to work at improving it. Very well worth the listen.
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- Rosemary V. DArcy
- 12-07-22
Excellent perspective!
Interesting research on how spaces affect social infrastructure and can support social infrastructure and potentially impact society.
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