Life Among Urban Planners

A collection of ethnographic case studies of urban planners and their practices Urban planners project the future of cities. As experts, they draft visions of places and times that do not yet exist, prescribing the tools to be used to achieve those visions. Their choices can determine how a city will merge its public transit and automobile traffic or how it will meet a demand for thousands of new dwelling units as quickly and with as little avoidable damage as possible. Life Among Urban Planners considers planning professionals in relation to the social contexts in which they operate: the planning office, the construction site, and even in the confrontations with thos eaffected by their work. What roles do planners have in shaping the daily practices of urban life? How do they employ, manipulate, and alter their expertise to meet the demands asked of them? The essays in this volume emphasize planners' cultural values and personal assumptions and critically examine what their persistent commitment to thinking about the future means for the ways in which people live in the present and preserve the past. Life Among Urban Planners explores the practices and politics of professional city-making in a wide selection of geographical areas spanning five continents. Cases include but are not limited to Bangkok, Bogotá, Chicago, Naimey, Rome, Siem Reap, Stockholm, and Warsaw. Examining the issues raised around questions of expertise, participation, and the tension between market and state forces, contributors demonstrate how certain planning practices accentuate their specific relationship to a place while others are represented to a global audience as potentially universal solutions. In presenting detailed and intimate portraits of the everyday lives of planners, the volume offers key insights into how the city interacts with the world. Contributors: Margaret Crawford, Adèle Esposito, Trevor Goldsmith, Mark Graham, Michael Herzfeld, James Holston, Gabriella Körling, Jennifer Mack, Andrew Newman, Lissa Nordin, Bruce O'Neill, Kevin Lewis O'Neill, Federico Pérez, Monika Sznel.

Jaqueline Tyrwhitt’s life story is truly a gap in the planning and urban design literature: while largely unacknowledged, she played a central role in twentieth-century design history. Here, Ellen Shoshkes provides a full and insightful appraisal of the British town planner, editor, and educator who was at the center of the group of people who shaped the post-war Modern Movement. Beginning with an examination of her early work planning for the physical reconstruction of post-war Britain, Shoshkes argues that Tyrwhitt forged a highly influential synthesis of the bioregionalism of the pioneering Scottish planner Patrick Geddes and the tenets of European modernism, as adapted by the Mars group, the British chapter of CIAM. The book traces Tyrwhitt’s subsequent contribution to the development of this set of ideas in diverse geographical, cultural and institutional settings and through personal relationships. In doing so, the book also sheds light on Tyrwhitt’s role in the revival of transnational networks of scholars and practitioners concerned with a humanistic, ecological approach to urban and regional planning and design following World War Two, notably those connecting East and West. The book details Tyrwhitt’s role in creating new programs for planning education in England, North America and Asia; pioneering methods for registered, overlay mapping (a forerunner of GIS), shaping post-war CIAM discourse on humanistic urbanism and assisting CIAM president Jose Luis Sert establish a new professional field of urban design based on this discourse at Harvard University (1956-69); consulting to the United Nations; collaborating with Sigfried Giedion on all of his major publications in English from 1947 on; and helping Constantinos Doxiadis promote a holistic approach to the study of human settlements, which he termed Ekistics, as a founding editor of the journal Ekistics and in the ten Delos Symposia Doxiadis hosted (1963-1972). The book concludes with an a

How to create the world's new urban future With the majority of the world's population shifting to urban centres, urban planning—the practice of land-use and transportation planning to help shape cities structurally, economically, and socially—has become an increasingly vital profession. In Urban Planning For Dummies, readers will get a practical overview of this fascinating field, including studying community demographics, determining the best uses for land, planning economic and transportation development, and implementing plans. Following an introductory course on urban planning, this book is key reading for any urban planning student or anyone involved in urban development. With new studies conclusively demonstrating the dramatic impact of urban design on public psychological and physical health, the impact of the urban planner on a community is immense. And with a wide range of positions for urban planners in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors—including law firms, utility companies, and real estate development firms—having a fundamental understanding of urban planning is key to anyone even considering entry into this field. This book provides a useful introduction and lays the groundwork for serious study. Helps readers understand the essentials of this complex profession Written by a certified practicing urban planner, with extensive practical and community-outreach experience For anyone interested in being in the vanguard of building, designing, and shaping tomorrow's sustainable city, Urban Planning For Dummies offers an informative, entirely accessible introduction on learning how.

Becoming an URBAN PLANNER Are you considering a career in urban planning? Becoming an Urban Planner is the best place to start. Through in-depth interviews with more than eighty urban planners across the United States and Canada, this book gives you a valuable insider’s look at your future profession as it is lived and practiced. Becoming an Urban Planner introduces you to the urban planning profession—its history, what you must know to prepare for a career in planning, and the different types of planning jobs. Beyond the basics, though, it shows you the realities of what it’s really like to be a planner today. You’ll learn about: The skills you’ll need and how to hone them in school and on the job Potential career paths and what people in these positions do Using internships, job shadowing, and other opportunities to break into the field Deciding among planning specialties and moving between public and private sectors How to search for and get your first position Emerging areas in planning, including sustainability and climate change Each topic is explored through in-depth interviews with both generalists and others who have devoted their careers to a particular aspect of planning. These professionals share their insights and describe how they have arrived at where they are and how beginners like you can learn from their experiences. With the information from this book to guide and inspire you, you will be able to chart your own path to success as an urban planner.

An argument that operational urban planning can be improved by the application of the tools of urban economics to the design of regulations and infrastructure. 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. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens. Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities' development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this “urban planners' dream” created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities' productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.

Charles Montgomery’s Happy City will revolutionize the way we think about urban life. 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 condo towers an improvement on the car-dependence of sprawl? The award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness, during an exhilarating journey through some of the world’s most dynamic cities. He meets the visionary mayor who introduced a “sexy” bus to ease status anxiety in Bogotá; the architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the activist who turned Paris’s urban freeways into beaches; and an army of American suburbanites who have hacked the design of their own streets and neighborhoods. Rich with new insights from psychology, neuroscience and Montgomery’s own urban experiments, Happy City reveals how our cities can shape our thoughts as well as our behavior. The message is as surprising as it is hopeful: by retrofitting cities and our own lives for happiness, we can tackle the urgent challenges of our age. The happy city can save the world--and all of us can help build it.

How do we accommodate a growing urban population in a way that is sustainable, equitable, and inviting? This question is becoming increasingly urgent to answer as we face diminishing fossil-fuel resources and the effects of a changing climate while global cities continue to compete to be the most vibrant centers of culture, knowledge, and finance. Jan Gehl has been examining this question since the 1960s, when few urban designers or planners were thinking about designing cities for people. But given the unpredictable, complex and ephemeral nature of life in cities, how can we best design public infrastructure—vital to cities for getting from place to place, or staying in place—for human use? Studying city life and understanding the factors that encourage or discourage use is the key to designing inviting public space. In How to Study Public Life Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre draw from their combined experience of over 50 years to provide a history of public-life study as well as methods and tools necessary to recapture city life as an important planning dimension. This type of systematic study began in earnest in the 1960s, when several researchers and journalists on different continents criticized urban planning for having forgotten life in the city. City life studies provide knowledge about human behavior in the built environment in an attempt to put it on an equal footing with knowledge about urban elements such as buildings and transport systems. Studies can be used as input in the decision-making process, as part of overall planning, or in designing individual projects such as streets, squares or parks. The original goal is still the goal today: to recapture city life as an important planning dimension. Anyone interested in improving city life will find inspiration, tools, and examples in this invaluable guide.

New Trends in Urban Planning: Studies in Housing, Urban Design and Planning presents the trends in urban planning with a wide array of theory and practice in various countries. This book deals with the overall problems facing urban planners in their striving at an enhanced quality of life in human settlements. Organized into seven panels encompassing 29 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the planning aspects of a general nature. This text then highlights some of the important trends in the recent change of focus due to the view that the settlement is a better contemporary definition than urban planning. Other chapters consider that the theory and practice of urban planning is found to be inadequate for the purpose of remedying deficiencies in urban areas. The final chapter deals with the specific developments that are taking place in Israel and elsewhere. This book is a valuable resource for teachers, practitioners, researchers, administrators, and politicians.