What's New

February 2004

Books and Documents

Environmental Planning

Geschwind, Carl-Henry. California Earthquakes: Science, Risk, and the Politics of Hazard Mitigation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Carl-Henry Geschwind tells the story of the small group of scientists and engineers who — in tension with real estate speculators and other pro-growth forces, private and public — developed the scientific and political infrastructure necessary to implement greater earthquake awareness. Through their political connections, these reformers succeeded in building a state apparatus in which regulators could work together with scientists and engineers to reduce earthquake hazards. Geschwind details the conflicts among scientists and engineers about how best to reduce these risks, and he outlines the dramatic 20th-century advances in our understanding of earthquakes — their causes and how we can try to prepare for them.

Green Streets: Innovative Solutions for Stormwater and Stream Crossings. Portland, Ore.: Metro, 2002.

A new resource for designing environmentally sound streets that can help protect streams and wildlife habitat. The handbook describes basic stormwater management strategies and illustrates street designs with features such as street trees, landscaped swales and special paving materials that allow infiltration and limit runoff. The handbook also provides guidance on balancing the needs of protecting stream corridors and providing access across those streams.

Sagastizabal, Daniel N. A Highway Runs Through It: Conserving Scenic Corridors in Florida. Gainesville, Fla.: Center for Governmental Responsibility, 1999.

This paper assesses scenic corridor protection techniques, both regulatory and incentive-based. It also discusses the roots of the scenic highway movement in the United States, and provides an overview of state and federal scenic byway programs. The paper also describes state programs with an emphasis on Florida's scenic byway program, and includes information about local and community-based scenic corridor protection strategies including tools and techniques for implementing scenic corridor programs.

Growth Management

Glaeser, Edward L., and Matthew E. Kahn. Sprawl and Urban Growth. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003.

In the 21st century, the dominant form of city living is based on the automobile and this form is sometimes called sprawl. This essay documents that sprawl is ubiquitous and that it is continuing to expand. Using a variety of evidence, it argues that sprawl is not the result of explicit government policies or bad urban planning, but rather the inexorable product of car-based living. Sprawl has been associated with significant improvements in quality of living, and the environmental impacts of sprawl have been offset by technological change. Finally, the authors suggest that the primary social problem associated with sprawl is the fact that some people are left behind because they do not earn enough to afford the cars that this form of living requires.

Growing Pains: Chicago, Hanover Park, Highwood, and Richmond. Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2003.

An executive summary of 2002-2003 Technical Assistance Panels offered by the Campaign for Sensible Growth and Urban Land Institute (ULI) Chicago.

Historic Preservation

Joyner, Brian D. African Reflections on the American Landscape: Identifying and Interpreting Africanisms. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 2003.

Highlights West and Central African cultural contributions to the nation's built environment that have been documented and recognized in the cultural resources programs of the National Park Service (NPS). This guide to Africanisms forms part of the larger effort of NPS and its partners to increase awareness of the role of various cultural groups in shaping the American landscape.

Housing

Green, Richard K., and Stephen Malpezzi. A Primer on U.S. Housing Markets and Housing Policy. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 2003.

The authors provide a broad review of the market for housing services in the U.S., including a conceptual framework, an overview of housing demand and supply, methods for measuring prices and quantities, and sources of basic data on markets. They cover housing programs and policies, and offer answers to policy questions that are of current interest.

Organizations

Professional Directory of Who's Who in Governmental Research: 2003. Birmingham, Ala.: Governmental Research Association, 2003.

Parks and Recreation

Harnik, Peter. The Excellent City Park System: What Makes it Great and How to Get There. Washington, D.C.: Trust for Public Land, 2003.

In 1997, TPL researcher Peter Harnik began collecting and publishing data on the nation's park systems. Initially he focused on park funding and acreage in the nation's largest cities. In this new publication, Harnik has expanded data collection to 55 cities and expanded the measures of park excellence to include what he calls "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Park Systems": a clear expression of purpose; an ongoing planning and community involvement process; sufficient assets in land, staffing and equipment to meet the system's goals; equitable park access; user satisfaction; safety from crime and physical hazards; and benefits for the city beyond the boundaries of the parks.

Planning

Geyer, H. S., ed. International Handbook of Urban Systems: Studies of Urbanization and Migration in Advanced and Developing Countries. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2002.

This authoritative handbook provides a comprehensive account of migration and economic development throughout the world, in both developed and developing countries. Some of the world's most experienced researchers in this field look at how population redistribution patterns have impacted on urban development in a wide selection of advanced and developing countries in all the major regions of the world over the past half century. The study results show that, despite local differences there are signs of remarkable similarities in the underlying forces that drive the migration process and urban development across the development spectrum.

Planning History

Mattingly, Paul H. Suburban Landscapes: Culture and Politics in a New York Metropolitan Community. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Paul Mattingly provides a new model for understanding suburban development through his narrative history of Leonia, New Jersey, an early commuter suburb of New York City. Although Leonia is a relatively small suburb, a study of this kind has national significance because most of America's suburbs began as rural communities, with histories that predated the arrival of commuters and real estate developers. Examining the dynamics of community cultural formation, Mattingly contests the prevailing urban and suburban dichotomy. In doing so, he offers a respite from journalistic cliches and scholarly bias about the American suburb, providing instead an insightful, nuanced look at the integrative history of a region. Click for review from the Journal of American History.

Scobey, David M. Empire City: The Making and Meaning of the New York City Landscape. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

Author David Scobey paints a remarkable panorama of New York's uneven development, a city-building process careening between obsessive calculation and speculative excess. Envisioning a new kind of national civilization, "bourgeois urbanists" attempted to make New York the nation's pre-eminent city. Ultimately, they created a mosaic of grand improvements, dynamic change, and environmental disorder. Empire City sets the stories of the city's most celebrated landmarks — Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the downtown commercial center — within the context of this new ideal of landscape design and a politics of planned city building. Perhaps such an ambitious project for guiding growth, overcoming spatial problems, and uplifting the public was bound to fail; still, it grips the imagination. Click for Environment and Planning review.

Seaside Debates: A Critique of the New Urbanism. New York: Rizzoli, 2002.

This series of presentations and critiques, which took place at the Seaside Institute in Seaside, Florida, highlights the major issues of New Urbanism as they were discussed by the key players in the field, such as Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Stefanos Polyzoides, and Daniel Solomon, as well as such academic critics as Witold Rybczynski, Colin Rowe, Judith DiMaio, Alex Krieger, Alan Plattus, and others. Issues of growth management, promotion of civic life, land conservation, and rational transportation were discussed, focusing on eight U.S. and Canadian cities as examples. Click for San Francisco Chronicle review (he liked Seaside and didn't like Big Plans, go figure). The Regional Plan Association also weighs in.

Planning Law

Meck, Stuart, and Kenneth Pearlman. Ohio Planning and Zoning Law. Cleveland: West Group, 2003.

Cited by the Ohio Supreme Court, this reference takes you step-by-step through Ohio's permit process and through state legislation governing planning, economic development, and affordable housing. Focusing on counties, townships, and municipalities, this book explains the structure of planning, types of zones and uses, variances and conditional uses, and land use litigation and remedies.

Planning Theory

Campbell, Scott, and Susan S. Fainstein, eds. Readings in Planning Theory. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003. 2 nd ed.

The second edition of this very successful volume examines the current state of planning theory and the new directions it has taken in recent years. The editors have selected a set of classic and contemporary writings to address a central question: What role can planning theory play in making the good city and region within the constraints of a capitalist political economy and a democratic political system? The volume draws on a wide range of authors who address planning history, challenges to public planning, competing planning styles, planning ethics, the public interest and issues such as race and gender. Some contributors also challenge conventional planning theory from postmodernist, communicative and feminist perspectives. Readings new in this edition also examine themes emerging in planning theory, including a critique of the modernist roots of centralized planning, a reemphasis on space in planning, and a discussion of the difficulty of sustainable development. The second edition also features new case studies with a focus on both American and international cases.

Transportation

National Transportation Organizations: Their Roles in the Policy Development and Implementation Process. Washington, D.C.: Eno Transportation Foundation, 2002.

This completely updated report identifies more than 200 transportation organizations representing stakeholders in the US transportation system. It describes the roles those organizations play in national policy development and implementation. Also included are listings of key congressional committees and federal agencies with responsibility for transportation.

The Role of Pricing in the Nation's Future Transportation System. Washington, D.C.: Eno Transportation Foundation, 2002.

Pricing as a means of managing demand has been successfully implemented in virtually all segments of the U.S. economy except transportation. This report explores the issue of value pricing and the role pricing could play in our highway system. The many reasons for implementing pricing systems include: providing a more equitable transportation system, relieving congestion, finding an alternative to a fuel-based financing system, and improving mobility, access, and the environment. This report summarizes the key findings from a one-day forum and covers institutional, ownership, and control issues; technical advances; equity issues; and tradeoffs.

Compiled by Shannon Paul, Librarian, Merriam Center Library, American Planning Association, library@planning.org