The health of our planet and our selves depends on how we plan, design, and construct the world between our buildings. Our increasing dependence on fossil fuels over the last century has given us unprecedented individual mobility and comfort, but the consequences are clear. Climate change, sprawl, and reliance on foreign oil are just a few of the challenges we face in designing new and adapting existing communities to be greener. Based on the National Building Museum's Green Community exhibition, this book is a collection of thought-provoking essays that illuminate the connections among...

Fifty years after the publication of her most influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs is perhaps the most widely read urbanist ever. Her ideas contributed to the wholesale reevaluation of the tenets of contemporary planning: urban renewal, public housing, highways, and zoning. It is hard to imagine the renewed appreciation of neighborhood life, the rejection of urban renewal and public housing complexes, and the rise of the new urbanist movement without Jane Jacobs. It may be hard to imagine gated communities, gentrification, and the Disneyfication of urban...

Fifty years after the publication of her most influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs is perhaps the most widely read urbanist ever. Her ideas contributed to the wholesale re-evaluation of the tenets of contemporary planning: urban renewal, public housing, highways, and zoning. It is hard to imagine the renewed appreciation of neighbourhood life, the rejection of urban renewal and public housing complexes, and the rise of the New Urbanist movement without Jane Jacobs. It may be hard to imagine gated communities, gentrification, and the Disneyfication of...