My reading suggestions, updated

I first wrote this in August, but I realized there are a few omissions and this list bears repeating. It's not necessarily a list in order of importance, but if you have the time to read only one book, I would recommend the very first one on the list.

I've added a list at the end (incomplete) of the books I'd like to read (and finish!) in 2006.

(This entry was inspired by a query I received from a reader of the blog.)

1. Cities: Back from the Edge by Roberta Gratz and Norman Mintz. This book is an excellent primer with plenty of case studies about the difference between asset-based community revitalization more from the ground up, what she calls "urban husbandry," vs. big project planning from the top-down. I think of each chapter as illustrations of the principles that Jane Jacobs lays out in Death and Life.

2. Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl by Richard Moe and Carter Willkie. This book is about historic preservation and community building. You can't get any more asset-based than historic preservation and the fact is the only sustainable urban revitalization strategy that appears to work is historic-preservation-based. The proof of this is the fact that most areas "renewed" through urban renewal programs in the 1950s-1980s now require a new "renewal" program because the programs, for the most part, haven't worked. Meanwhile historic neighborhoods continue to be "reborn" and refreshed with new residents and new uses.

3. Home from Nowhere/Geography of Nowhere both by James Howard Kunstler. They are great reads and explain how the dominant planning and development paradigm of the past 50 years has cheapened and destroyed the quality of life in the United States. Kunstler is the "rock star" writing in this field, if you ever get a chance to hear him speak, don't miss it.

4. The Future Once Happened Here by Fred Siegel is considered to be a conservative take on the decline of cities. He uses DC, LA, and NYC as case studies to explain broad themes and trends. I think it's an essential read for understanding the decline of municipal institutions and how and where to begin the rebuilding of these essential institutions. If you can only read two books, this is the second.

5. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City by Elijah Anderson, a sociologist at Penn, "takes a piercing look at the complex issues surrounding respect, social etiquette and family values in the multicultural neighborhoods along Philadelphia's Germantown Avenue. A major artery of the city, the street reflects the vast social and economic difficulties confronting many of the nation's urban centers." This book is essential reading for people inexperienced with urban living and economically and racially diverse communities. And this might be the third book to read...

6. The Living City is an earlier book by Roberta Gratz. Some of the chapters, such as the chapter explaning how an department store chain purchased independent department stores companies with one to three branches and then systematically destroyed the downtown stores, are chilling.

7. Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. While this should be the "first" book you read on urban studies, the fact is it's pretty subtle and nuanced and it helps to have some background before taking it on.

8. Streets of Hope by Holly Sklar and Peter Medoff is about the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Boston. It's an inspiring story of a truly community-led community development corporation. The early chapters that describe the systematic disinvestment of Boston neighborhoods are chilling.

9. Urban Fortunes: Toward a Political Economy of Place by John Logan and Harvey Molotch is probably the best explanation of local power structures and how they unite behind a pro-development "growth" agenda. The chapter explaining the "use value of place" vs. the "exchange value of place" will transform how you think about these issues.

10. Cities in Full by Steve Belmont is an updating of Jane Jacobs for today, with solid numbers-based analysis that explain the value and necessity of relative density to stable neighborhoods and commercial districts. It's incredibly well-written.

11. Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. by Henry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood is about DC and Marion Barry. You can think of this book as a case study explaining the "Growth Machine" thesis of Logan and Molotch. The chapter on downtown development is must-reading for DC activists, but then so is the whole book.

12. Urban Design Compendium by English Partnerships. This handbook explains urban design, not suburban design, and should be read by anyone involved in any aspect of land use and planning in cities. Cities aren't suburbs and should be treated accordingly. This item is available for free by request at the EP website.

13. Community Economic Development Handbook by Mihalio Temali is a textbook that lays out a very practical approach to community revitalization. It excludes a focus on residential revitalization, but the approach, and all the reproducibles are infinitely applicable.

14. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order And Reducing Crime In Our Communities by Catherine Coles and George Kelling updates the original article that appeared in Atlantic Monthly in the early 1980s with the thesis that the best way to maintain stable communities is to address problems when they are small, by not "defining deviance down" and by focusing police efforts towards what they call "problem-oriented policing" (which is different from "community-oriented policing" in that it is data driven focus on crime rather than merely being out and about in the community).

15. Geography of Urban Transportation edited by Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano. I think I left this off the list before because it's a textbook, but it reads so much better than that... I can't believe that a transportation planning class isn't mandatory for all students in urban planning.

16. Creating a Vibrant City Center by Cy Paumier is a good overview of all the pieces that make for vibrant cities.

17. City by WIlliam Whyte. Unfortunately this book is out-of-print, but it outlines the basis of the principles that led to the formation of the Project for Public Spaces.

18. This might be a stretch, but if you work in commercial district revitalization, I think that Marketing an Image for Main Street, produced by the National Main Street Center, is excellent, and a practical overview of the issues of rebuilding the economy of a commercial district and what you need to do in order to successfully promote the district.
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Books I've picked at or haven't even opened but I plan, somehow, to read this year:

The Economy of Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations both by Jane Jacobs;
The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch;
Inside Game/Outsite Game: Winning Strategies for Saving Urban America by David Rusk;
Paths and Pitfalls: On the Way to a New Vibrancy in Older Retail Districts (about Manayunk in Philadelphia) by Ed Crow;
Root Shock (I own it but I haven't read it);
The Failures Of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream -- by Sheryll Cashin (she's at Georgetown and occasionally speaks in the area);
Preserving the World's Great Cities: The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis by Anthony Tung;
Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way by Jim Diers (this one's sitting on my coffee table);
Empowered Participation and Deepening Democracy both by Archon Fung, the latter with Erik Olin Wright;
books by David Harvey, I don't know which ones yet;
The New Urban Frontier; Gentrification and the Revanchist City by Neil Smith as I've finally had to admit that there is more going on when it comes to "new investments" in neighborhoods;
Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form by Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Tridib Banerjee;
Surfing the Edge of Chaos; The Results Fieldbook; and Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within and Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Results -- each relates to effecting change and/or "positive deviance";
Visions For a New American Dream: Process, Principles, and an Ordinance to Plan and Design Small Communities by Anton C. Nelessen (also describes Nelessen's "Visual Preference Survey" process);
The City: A Global History by Joel Kotkin just so I can be better armed against his pro-suburban arguments; and
there are more, but even this list is plenty ambitious...

I do really hope to get a book reading group going by late May.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization