American cities' penchants for single-use zoning and free-market development in pursuit of economic growth have produced problems that have long been recognized: grueling commutes and dependency on automobiles, social isolation, expensive public infrastructure, needless destruction of countryside. Eminent domain disputes rage on, despite recent Supreme Court decisions. Outdated public housing and failed single-function projects litter the landscape.Addressing these urgent problems and debating the public's role in urban planning, the contributors to Urban Planning Today report on real...

American cities' penchants for single-use zoning and free-market development in pursuit of economic growth have produced problems that have long been recognized: grueling commutes and dependency on automobiles, social isolation, expensive public infrastructure, needless destruction of countryside. Eminent domain disputes rage on, despite recent Supreme Court decisions. Outdated public housing and failed single-function projects litter the landscape.Addressing these urgent problems and debating the public's role in urban planning, the contributors to Urban Planning Today report on real...

Everything that anybody (whether they are citizen activists, or public officials, or professional landscape architects, architects, and planners) needs to know about the critical role public parks play in creating livable communities. Millions of dollars are being spent on restoring parks and creating new ones. Planner Alexander Garvin explains the rationales for their existence, the forms they take, their value, ways to pay for and govern them, and the ingredients that make successful parks, providing the first single definitive source of wisdom about them.

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." It is about what people who shape cities can do to make a city great. A great city is not an exquisite, completed...

A well-known expert on cities brings an inside perspective to the future of American downtowns.