For five thousand years, human settlements were nearly always compact places. Everything a person needed on a regular basis lay within walking distance. But then the great project of the twentieth century'sorting people, businesses, and activities into separate zones, scattered across vast metropolises'took hold, exacting its toll on human ......
Some parks, preserves, and other natural areas serve people well; others are disappointing. Successful design and management requires knowledge of both people and environments.With People in Mind explores how to design and manage areas of ""everyday nature"" -- parks and open spaces, corporate grounds, vacant lots and backyard gardens, fields and ......
Can nature'in all its unruly wildness'be an integral part of creative landscape design? In her beautifully illustrated book, Wild by Design, award-winning designer Margie Ruddick urges designers to look beyond the rules often imposed by both landscaping convention and sustainability checklists. Instead, she offers a set of principles ......
Strips of urban and suburban ""fabric"" have extended into the countryside, creating a ragged settlement pattern that blurs the distinction between rural, urban, and suburban. As traditional rural industries like farming, forestry, and mining rapidly give way to residential and commercial development, the land at the edges of ......
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 ......
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 ......
Cities are the future of the human race, and Jeff Speck knows how to make them work.a 'David Owen, staff writer at the New Yorker
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 ......
Vacant lots, so often seen as neighborhood blight, have the potential to be a key element of community revitalization. As manufacturing cities reinvent themselves after decades of lost jobs and population, abundant vacant land resources and interest in green infrastructure are expanding opportunities for community and environmental ......
How do you create inviting and authentic urban environments where people feel at home? Countless community engagement workshops, studies by consulting firms, and downtown revitalization campaigns have attempted to answer this age-old question. In Urbanism Without Effort, Chuck Wolfe argues that unplanneda places can often teach us ......
