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Author: Ross Chapin
Publisher: Taunton Press
Published: 2011
Total Pages: 229
ISBN-13: 160085107X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Architect and author Chapin describes existing pocket neighborhoods and co-housing communities while providing inspiration for creating new ones.
Author: Diana Leafe Christian
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2007-05-01
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9781550923834
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →How to research, visit, evaluate, and join the ecovillage or sustainable community of your dreams. Finding community is as critical as obtaining food and shelter, since the need to belong is what makes us human. The isolation and loneliness of modern life have led many people to search for deeper connection, which has resulted in a renewed interest in intentional communities. These intentional communities or ecovillages are an appealing choice for like-minded people who seek to create a family-oriented and ecologically sustainable lifestyle—a lifestyle they are unlikely to find anywhere else. However, the notion of an intentional community can still be a tremendous leap for some—deterred perhaps by a misguided vision of eking out a hardscrabble existence with little reward. In fact, successful ecovillages thrive because of the combined skills and resources of their members. Finding Community presents a thorough overview of ecovillages and intentional communities and offers solid advice on how to research thoroughly, visit thoughtfully, evaluate intelligently, and join gracefully. Useful considerations include: Important questions to ask (of members and of yourself) Signs of a healthy (and not-so-healthy) community Cost of joining (and staying) Common blunders to avoid Finding Community provides intriguing possibilities to readers who are seeking a more cooperative, sustainable, and meaningful life. Diana Leafe Christian is the author of Creating a Life Together and editor of Communities magazine. She lives at Earthhaven Ecovillage in North Carolina.
Author: Philip Walker
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-08
Total Pages: 232
ISBN-13: 1351177958
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →"For so long we were floundering and taking ad hoc measures, but the minute I understood what a downtown plan really was I said 'We need one of those!' As it turned out, it was the most fantastic vehicle I've ever seen," said Susan Moffat-Thomas of New Bern, North Carolina. Her hometown got a much-needed shot in the arm from a good downtown plan. Does yours need a similar boost? The Author, an experienced downtown-planning consultant, offers practical tips for preserving a sense of place, improving fiscal efficiency, and enhancing quality of life in Downtown Planning for Smaller and Midsized Communities. Planners and revitalization officials will learn how to address physical components of the downtown, as well as economic development. The Author, an experienced downtown-planning consultant, also explains how to develop an organization to implement a downtown plan; how federal, state, and local policies may influence the planning process; and how to fund a downtown revitalization effort.
Author: Doug Kelbaugh
Publisher: Samuel and Althea Stroum Book
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9780295975900
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Common Place is about how we can develop community and create convivial and sustainable places in the face of disjointed and fast-placed growth. It offers strategies for reclaiming and improving our neighborhoods and cities, which today are increasingly dominated by fear and disintegration and the automobile. Douglas Kelbaugh offers here a personal, passionate statement of how architecture and urban design can enrich our lives. At the heart of the book are summaries of eight design workshops, or charrettes, each consisting of five days of brainstorming by university students, community leaders, and design professionals. The charrettes apply design concepts to real problems such as housing, transportation, and suburban sprawl. Thousands of hours of creative effort have produced a blueprint for the Seattle region that is pertinent to other regions. Bridging academic theory and on-the-ground practice, Common Place is an indispensable book for designers, planners, city officials, developers, environmentalists, and citizens interested in understanding and shaping the American metropolis.
Author: Gerald E. Frug
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2001-02-20
Total Pages: 267
ISBN-13: 140082334X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →American metropolitan areas today are divided into neighborhoods of privilege and poverty, often along lines of ethnicity and race. City residents traveling through these neighborhoods move from feeling at home to feeling like tourists to feeling so out of place they fear for their security. As Gerald Frug shows, this divided and inhospitable urban landscape is not simply the result of individual choices about where to live or start a business. It is the product of government policies--and, in particular, the policies embedded in legal rules. A Harvard law professor and leading expert on urban affairs, Frug presents the first-ever analysis of how legal rules shape modern cities and outlines a set of alternatives to bring down the walls that now keep city dwellers apart. Frug begins by describing how American law treats cities as subdivisions of states and shows how this arrangement has encouraged the separation of metropolitan residents into different, sometimes hostile groups. He explains in clear, accessible language the divisive impact of rules about zoning, redevelopment, land use, and the organization of such city services as education and policing. He pays special attention to the underlying role of anxiety about strangers, the widespread desire for good schools, and the pervasive fear of crime. Ultimately, Frug calls for replacing the current legal definition of cities with an alternative based on what he calls "community building"--an alternative that gives cities within the same metropolitan region incentives to forge closer links with each other. An incisive study of the legal roots of today's urban problems, City Making is also an optimistic and compelling blueprint for enabling American cities once again to embrace their historic role of helping people reach an accommodation with those who live in the same geographic area, no matter how dissimilar they are.
Author: Howard Davis
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-02-13
Total Pages: 448
ISBN-13: 1136619100
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The shop/house – the building combining commercial/retail uses and dwellings – appears over many periods of history in most cities in the world. This book combines architectural history, cross-cultural understandings and accounts of contemporary policy and building practice to provide a comprehensive account of this common but overlooked building. The merchant's house in northern European cities, the Asian shophouse, the apartment building on New York avenues, typical apartment buildings in Rome and in Paris – this variety of shop/houses along with the commonality of attributes that form them, mean that the hybrid phenomenon is as much a social and economic one as it is an architectural one. Professionals, city officials and developers are taking a new look at buildings that allow for higher densities and mixed-use. Describing exemplary contemporary projects and issues pertaining to their implementation as well as the background, cultural variety and urban attributes, this book will benefit designers dealing with mixed-use buildings as well as academics and students.
Author: Peter K. B. St. Jean
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2008-09-15
Total Pages: 596
ISBN-13: 0226775003
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Why, even in the same high-crime neighborhoods, do robbery, drug dealing, and assault occur much more frequently on some blocks than on others? One popular theory is that a weak sense of community among neighbors can create conditions more hospitable for criminals, and another proposes that neighborhood disorder—such as broken windows and boarded-up buildings—makes crime more likely. But in his innovative new study, Peter K. B. St. Jean argues that we cannot fully understand the impact of these factors without considering that, because urban space is unevenly developed, different kinds of crimes occur most often in locations that offer their perpetrators specific advantages. Drawing on Chicago Police Department statistics and extensive interviews with both law-abiding citizens and criminals in one of the city’s highest-crime areas, St. Jean demonstrates that drug dealers and robbers, for example, are primarily attracted to locations with businesses like liquor stores, fast food restaurants, and check-cashing outlets. By accounting for these important factors of spatial positioning, he expands upon previous research to provide the most comprehensive explanation available of why crime occurs where it does.
Author: Peter Lovenheim
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-04-06
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 1101186674
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Based on a popular New York Times Op-Ed piece, this is the quirky, heartfelt account of one man's quest to meet his neighbors--and find a sense of community. **As seen in Parade, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, and more. **Winner of the Zocalo Square Book Prize, and recently named a first selection by Action Book Club. "It's impossible to read this book without feeling the urge to knock on neighbors' doors." -Chicago Sun-Times Journalist and author Peter Lovenheim lived on the same street in suburban Rochester, NY, most of his life. But it was only after a brutal murder-suicide rocked the community that he was struck by a fact of modern life in this comfortable enclave: No one knew anyone else. Thus begins Peter's search to meet and get to know his neighbors. An inquisitive person, he does more than just introduce himself. He asks, ever so politely, if he can sleep over. In this smart, engaging, and deeply felt book, Lovenheim takes readers inside the homes, minds, and hearts of his neighbors and asks a thought-provoking question: Do neighborhoods matter--and is something lost when we live among strangers?
Author: David Sim
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2019-08-20
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 1642830186
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Imagine waking up to the gentle noises of the city, and moving through your day with complete confidence that you will get where you need to go quickly and efficiently. Soft City is about ease and comfort, where density has a human dimension, adapting to our ever-changing needs, nurturing relationships, and accommodating the pleasures of everyday life. How do we move from the current reality in most cites—separated uses and lengthy commutes in single-occupancy vehicles that drain human, environmental, and community resources—to support a soft city approach? In Soft City David Sim, partner and creative director at Gehl, shows how this is possible, presenting ideas and graphic examples from around the globe. He draws from his vast design experience to make a case for a dense and diverse built environment at a human scale, which he presents through a series of observations of older and newer places, and a range of simple built phenomena, some traditional and some totally new inventions. Sim shows that increasing density is not enough. The soft city must consider the organization and layout of the built environment for more fluid movement and comfort, a diversity of building types, and thoughtful design to ensure a sustainable urban environment and society. Soft City begins with the big ideas of happiness and quality of life, and then shows how they are tied to the way we live. The heart of the book is highly visual and shows the building blocks for neighborhoods: building types and their organization and orientation; how we can get along as we get around a city; and living with the weather. As every citizen deals with the reality of a changing climate, Soft City explores how the built environment can adapt and respond. Soft City offers inspiration, ideas, and guidance for anyone interested in city building. Sim shows how to make any city more efficient, more livable, and better connected to the environment.
Author: Kol Peterson
Publisher:
Published: 2018-01-23
Total Pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780692053515
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Through case studies, expert interviews, firsthand anecdotes, images, and data analysis, Backdoor Revolution reveals the opportunities, challenges, and best practices of ADU development for homeowners, including costs, financing, design, zoning barriers, and regulatory loopholes.
