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What Makes a Great City

Name: What Makes a Great City
Brand: ISLAND PRESS
SKU: 9781610917575
Price: 253.0 AUD
Availability: InStock

ISLAND PRESSISBN: 9781610917575

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$253.00

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Imprint: ISLAND PRESS
By: By Alexander Garvin
Release Date: November 14, 2016
Format: HARDBACK
Pages: 341

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One of Planetizen's Top Planning Books for 2017

San Francisco Chronicle's 2016 Holiday Books Gift Guide Pick

What makes a great city? Not a good city or a functional city but a great city. A city that people admire, learn from, and replicate. City planner and architect Alexander Garvin set out to answer this question by observing cities, largely in North America and Europe, with special attention to Paris, London, New York, and Vienna.

For Garvin, greatness is not just about the most beautiful, convenient, or well-managed city; it isn't even about any city.a It is about what people who shape cities can do to make a city great. A great city is not an exquisite, completed artifact. It is a dynamic, constantly changing place that residents and their leaders can reshape to satisfy their demands. While this book does discuss the history, demographic composition, politics, economy, topography, history, layout, architecture, and planning of great cities, it is not about these aspects alone. Most importantly, it is about the interplay between people and public realm, and how they have interacted throughout history to create great cities.

To open the book, Garvin explains that a great public realm attracts and retains the people who make a city great. He describes exactly what the term public realm means, its most important characteristics, as well as providing examples of when and how these characteristics work, or don't. An entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of how particular components of the public realm (squares in London, parks in Minneapolis, and streets in Madrid) shape people's daily lives. He concludes with a look at how twenty-first century initiatives in Paris, Houston, Atlanta, Brooklyn, and Toronto are making an already fine public realm even better'initiatives that demonstrate what other cities can do to improve.

What Makes a Great City will help readers understand that any city can be changed for the better and inspire entrepreneurs, public officials, and city residents to do it themselves.

Preface: What Makes a Great City

Chapter 1: The Importance of the Public Realm
Defining the Public Realm
Streets, Squares, and Parks
Beyond Streets, Squares, and Parks
Making Cities Great

Chapter 2: The Characteristics of the Public Realm
Open to Anybody
Something for Everybody
Attracting and Retaining Market Demand
Providing a Framework for Successful Urbanization
Sustaining a Habitable Environment
Nurturing and Supporting a Civil Society

Chapter 3: Open to Anybody
Overwhelmingly Identifiable, Accessible, and Easy to Use
Plaza Mayor, Salamanca, Spain
Creating an Identifiable, Accessible, and Easy-to-Use Public Realm
The Paris Metro
Federal Center, Chicago
Piazza del Campo, Siena, Italy
The Squares of Savannah
Sixteenth Street, Denver
Keeping the Public Realm Safe
Gran Via, Barcelona
Piet Heinkade, Amsterdam
The Streets of Paris
Feeling Comfortable
Jardin du Palais Royale, Paris
Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Kungstradgarten, Stockholm
Via dei Condotti, Rome
Via Aquilante, Gubbio, Italy
Worth Avenue, Palm Beach
Levittown, Long Island
Forever Welcoming

Chapter 4: Something for Everybody
A Reason to Return Again and Again
Boulevard des Italiens, Paris
Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris
Washington Park, Chicago
Having Fun
Playgrounds
Piazza Navona, Rome
Animating a Multifunctional Public Realm
Market Square and PPG Place, Pittsburgh
A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place
Central Park, New York City
Passeig de Gracia, Barcelona
Reclaiming Bits of the Public Realm for Public Use
Plenty of People

Chapter 5: Attracting and Retaining Market Demand
Using the Public Realm to Trigger Private Development
Place des Vosges, Paris
The Revival of the Place des Vosges
Regent's Park, London
Avenue Foch, Paris
Enlarging the Public Realm to Accommodate a Growing Market
An Administrative Center for the Modern City of Paris
North Michigan Avenue, Chicago
Responding to Diminishing Market Demand by Repositioning the Public Realm
Kärntner Stra+e, Vienna
Bryant Park, New York City
Continuing Investment

Chapter 6: Providing a Framework for Successful Urbanization
Alternative Frameworks
Atlanta
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Rome
St. Petersburg, Russia
The Paris Street Network
Ringstrasse, Vienna
Radio-Concentric Moscow
Houston's Highway Rings
The Manhattan Grid
Maintaining the Public Realm Framework
Thirty-Fourth Street, Manhattan
Determining the Location of Market Activity

Chapter 7: Sustaining a Habitable Environment
What Does It Take to Sustain a Habitable Environment?
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Using the Public Realm to Create a Habitable Environment
Boston's Emerald Necklace
Long Island's Network of Parks, Beaches, and Parkways
Reconfiguring the Public Realm to Improve Habitability
The Public Squares of Portland, Oregon
New York City's Greenstreets Program
Transportation Alternatives that Improve Habitability
Union Square, San Francisco
Post Office Square, Boston
Congestion Pricing in London
Congestion Targets in Zurich
An Ever More Habitable Public Realm
The Chicago Lakeshore
Reviving the San Antonio River
Operating the Public Realm
Park Management in New York City
An Ever-Improving Public Realm

Chapter 8: Nurturing and Supporting a Civil Society
The Nurturing Role of the Public Realm
The Streets of Copenhagen
Palace Square (Dvortsovaya Ploshchad), St. Petersburg
Red Square, Moscow
Ensuring that the Public Realm Continues to Nurture a Civil Society
Times Square, Manhattan
The Public Realm as a Setting for Self-Expression

Chapter 9: Using the Public Realm to Shape Everyday Life
Whose Realm Is It?
Determining the Daily Life of a City
The Squares of London
The Minneapolis Park System
The Madrid Miracle
The Key to Greatness

Chapter 10: Creating a Public Realm for the Twenty-First Century
The Patient Search for a Better Tomorrow
Place de la République, Paris
Post Oak Boulevard in the Uptown District of Houston
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Atlanta's BeltLine Emerald Necklace
Waterfront Toronto
What Makes a City Great

"For cities and the public realm, Alexander Garvin is a modern-day Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexander von Humboldt wrapped together and tied up with a bow! His keen, wise observations, analysis, and insights in What Makes a Great City are a splendid gift to urbanites around the world."

What Makes a Great City

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