Books about Municipal from Amazon.com

Celebrated urban historian's bestselling account of the global explosion of slums, with a major new introduction

According to the United Nations, more than one billion people now live in the slums of the cities of the South. In this brilliant and influential book, Mike Davis explores the future of a radically unequal and explosively unstable urban world. From the sprawling barricadas of Lima to the garbage hills of Manila, urbanization has been disconnected from industrialization, even economic growth. Davis portrays a vast humanity warehoused in shantytowns and exiled from the formal world economy. He argues that the rise of this informal urban proletariat is a wholly unforeseen development and asks whether the great slums are, as a terrified Victorian middle class once imagined, volcanoes waiting to erupt..
Price: $10.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots.

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

.
Price: $6.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Based on the author's extensive experience as a working planner, this book gives readers an insider's view of sub-state urban planning–the “nitty-gritty” details on the interplay of politics, law, money, and interest groups. The author takes a balanced, non-judgmental approach to introduce a range of ideological and political perspectives on the operation of political, economic, and demographic forces in city planning. Unlike other books on the subject, this one is strong in its coverage of economics, law, finance, and urban governance. It examines the underlying forces of growth and change and discusses frankly who benefits and loses by particular decisions. A four-part organization covers the background and development of contemporary planning; the structure and practice of contemporary planning; fields of planning; and national planning in the United States and other nations, and planning theory. For individuals headed for a career in planning.

.
Price: $86.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Judd, Dennis R., Swanstrom, Todd, City Politics: Private Power Public Policy, 3rd Edition*\ Praised for its narrative style, strong research base, and distinctive theme-that urban politics in the U.S. has evolved as a dynamic interaction between governmental power and private purposes-the new edition of this #1 book is the most extensive revision yet. It has been updated to include preliminary data from the 2000 census, information about urban partisan movements and a new chapter on urban sprawl. Three primary themes are woven throughout the text: the imperative of growth; the challenge of governance; and the politics of secession. For those interested in urban politics and studies. .
Price: $77.04 [Notify me when price goes down.]

More and more people are moving into towns and cities to live and work, which is altering the urban/rural balance of countries worldwide. THE ENDLESS CITY is an unparalleled study of the growth of six of the world's international cities (New York, Shanghai, London, Mexico City, Johannesburg, and Berlin), exploring key structural, social, and economic factors. This book was overseen by the London School of Economics, and features extensive research and coherent texts by world-renowned professionals in the field of urban planning and development. The information is presented in a comprehensive and visually compelling sequence, enabling quick and efficient reference as well as offering material that is exciting to study. Each city is examined individually in its own chapter as well as being analyzed comparatively in an observational chapter. THE ENDLESS CITY is authoritatively edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic in collaboration with the London School of Economics and the Urban Age Project, an expanding international organization seeking a new urban agenda for global cities..
Price: $44.07 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Lewis Mumford's massive historical study brings together a wide array of evidence--from the earliest group habitats to medieval towns to the modern centers of commerce (as well as dozens of black-and-white illustrations)--to show how the urban form has changed throughout human civilization. His tone is ultimately somewhat pessimistic: Mumford was deeply concerned with what he viewed as the dehumanizing aspects of the metropolitan trend, which he deemed "a world of professional illusionists and their credulous victims." (In another typically unrestrained criticism, he dubbed the Pentagon a Bronze Age monument to humanity's basest impulses, as well as an "effete and worthless baroque conceit.") Mumford hoped for a rediscovery of urban principles that emphasized humanity's organic relationship to its environment. The City in History remains a powerfully influential work, one that has shaped the agendas of urban planners, sociologists, and social critics since its publication in the 1960s. .
Price: $18.14 [Notify me when price goes down.]

.
Price: $13.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In Earth in Mind, noted environmental educator David W. Orr focuses not on problems in education, but on the problem of education

Much of what has gone wrong with the world, he argues, is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that: alienates us from life in the name of human domination; causes students to worry about how to make a living before they know who they are; overemphasizes success and careers; separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical; deadens the sense of wonder for the created world.

The crisis we face, Orr explains, is one of mind, perception, and values. It is, first and foremost, an educational challenge.

The author begins by establishing the grounds for a debate about education and knowledge. He describes the problems of education from an ecological perspective, and challenges the "terrible simplifiers" who wish to substitute numbers for values. He follows with a presentation of principles for re-creating education in the broadest way possible, discussing topics such as biophilia, the disciplinary structure of knowledge, the architecture of educational buildings, and the idea of ecological intelligence. Orr concludes by presenting concrete proposals for reorganizing the curriculum to draw out our affinity for life.

.
Price: $18.97 [Notify me when price goes down.]