City Design

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?

Urban planning is a craft learned through practice. Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground - the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative - “sustainable,” “livable,” “resilient” - often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings.

From the creators of the wildly popular99% Invisiblepodcast, comes a guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities. Narrated by Roman Mars, with a bonus Q&A and a Full Episode of 99% Invisible. Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk...

Landscape designer and historian Wade Graham follows the acclaimed American Eden with a lively, accessible cultural history of modern cities—from suburbs, downtown districts, and exurban sprawl, to shopping malls and “sustainable” developments—seen through the lens of planning, design...

How Real Estate Developers Think considers developers from three different perspectives. Brown profiles the careers of individual developers to illustrate the character of the entrepreneur; considers the roles played by innovation, design, marketing, and sales in the production of real estate; and examines the risks and rewards that motivate developers as people.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” — from Invisible Cities In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo —...

From “tomorrow’s greatest designer” (The Atlantic), a personal and deeply researched look at how the choices we build into our environment reflect and determine the way we think, connect, and live. We've been led to believe that purposefully designed spaces are something reserved only for...

Segregation by Design draws on more than 100 years of quantitative and qualitative data from thousands of American cities to explore how local governments generate race and class segregation. Starting in the early 20th century, cities have used their power of land use control to determine the location and availability of housing, amenities (such as parks), and negative land uses (such as garbage dumps). The result has been segregation - first within cities and more recently between them. 

The #1 New York Times bestselling author brings us her most ambitious and provocative work yet—a searing and timely novel that explores the most volatile issue of our time—domestic violence. At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge...

Tras décadas de expansión descontrolada, más personas que nunca están volviendo a la ciudad. La vida urbana densa se ha prescrito como la panacea para la crisis medioambiental y de recursos de nuestro tiempo. ¿Pero es mejor o peor para nuestra felicidad? ¿Son el metro, las aceras y las torres de apartamentos una mejora respecto a la dependencia del coche en los suburbios?

From one of the world’s most innovative designers comes a fiercely passionate manifesto—on why so many places have become miserable and boring and how we can make them better for everyone—that will change how you see the world around you. We are living through a global catastrophe...

A city is not only streets and buildings. A city is where life happens. People walk to work, children play in parks, neighbors meet on sidewalks, and conversations begin in cafés and public squares. When public spaces are well designed, people enjoy being outside and feel connected to their community. But when streets are dirty, broken, or confusing, people avoid them. Public life becomes weaker. Over time, the city loses its energy. Cities for People offers 52 clear and practical ideas to make cities cleaner, safer, and more welcoming. The book focuses on simple improvements that can ...

Jane Jacobs and the Human City: Exploring the Principles of Human-Centered Urban Design is a powerful exploration of one of the most influential urban thinkers of the twentieth century. Jane Jacobs changed the way the world understands cities by insisting that real urban vitality comes from people—their interactions, diversity, and daily lives—not from abstract blueprints or top-down planning. This book introduces Jacobs’s life and legacy while connecting her ideas to the modern framework of human-centered design. From her defense of sidewalks and public spaces to her critique of ...

The city isn’t just noise — it’s an instrument. City of Sound: A Hip Hop Producer’s Urban Survival Manual is a one-of-a-kind guide for beatmakers, sound scavengers, and rhythm survivalists. Cash Cobbler takes you on a raw expedition through the streets, alleys, rooftops, tunnels, and ruins of the urban sprawl — teaching you how to capture the chaos and flip it into rhythm. Every chapter blends gritty field notes with hands-on producer techniques: Pavement Percussion — footsteps, stomps, and manhole drums. Steel & Sparks — jackhammers, scaffolds, and the skeleton of the city. ...

The Soul of the City: James Hillman on Architecture, Nature, Community, and the Psychology of Place argues that cities are not just containers for human life. Streets, buildings, parks, vacant lots, schools, libraries, and public squares actively shape attention, mood, memory, and social life. Using the ideas of James Hillman, this book presents a grounded way to think about the psyche as something expressed in the world around us, not sealed inside the individual mind. It asks why one block feels inviting and another feels harsh, why some neighborhoods hold identity while others feel ...

After smartphones, smart TVs, smart windows, and other smart products on the horizon, smart cities were the next logical step in trying to create a better, brighter, more sustainable, and economically sound future. A relatively new term, smart cities conjures images of a cooperative, wired, prosperous utopia where citizens of all classes achieve a high quality of life. In this audiobook, we look at the qualities needed for future cities to survive and thrive. 

The American Dream thrives in 1912 New York City Annie Wood, the housemaid-turned-pattern designer in The Pattern Artist, jumps at the chance to design her own clothing line when a wealthy New York couple offers to finance her endeavor. Joining the project is Annie’s new husband, Sean Culver, her best friend at Butterick, Maude Nascato, and a mother figure, Edna Holmquist. Annie and her colleagues give up their careers, risking everything to follow a shared passion: clothes that are both fashionable and functional for modern, busy women in 1912. Personal and financial setbacks test old ...

A “thrilling” (Financial Times) fly-on-the-wall account of the ferocious ambition, greed, and one-upmanship behind the most expensive real estate in the world: the new Manhattan megatowers known as Billionaires’ Row—from a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal “Deeply informative...

Why had she thought this would be fun? Oh right—because she was tired of spending every Sunday night with her feet up in front of a Netflix documentary, with her cat, Milo, eyeing her like even he thought she needed to get out more. Her friend Louise had been the one to convince her to finally start using the app, insisting that "architects can't design love." Emer Kilkenny has been described as the best of the new generation of Irish authors, following in the footsteps of Sally Rooney and Marian Keyes. A Design For Love is the first installment of her debut Garden City Trilogy series. ...

1919 New York City: World War I is over and the world tries to recover and start fresh. The ladies of the dress store, Unruffled--Annie, Edna, Maude and Henrietta--have been friends for years. Their bond has grown, as has their dedication to their families, their business, and their desire to make their lives matter. Join these amazing women in this satisfying conclusion to the Pattern Artist Series.Annie Culver: Annie and Sean have two young daughters. But Sean hasn't returned from the war; he is missing. Annie tries to remain hopeful, and focuses on their dress store. She is caught off ...