Aug. 7, 2025
There are few things better in the summer than lounging in the sun with a thought-provoking book in your hands. So, when you get away from the office for a little R-and-R, consider checking out these new books featured in the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) to expand your knowledge base while you relax.
Stay in-the-know
These page-turners touch on some of the most pressing topics affecting planning today, like mobility, aging in place, gentrification, and ethics. After reading each brief synopsis below, click through to read the full JAPA review. A special thanks to our JAPA reviewers: Katrin B. Anacker, Lisa Berglund, Manish Chalana, Kara Murphy Schlichting, and Stephen M. Wheeler.
OUR RECOMMENDED BOOKS ARE:
Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles
Elsa Devienne, 2024, Oxford University Press, 328 pp, $34.99
This book traces Los Angeles's relationship with its famous beaches from the early 1900s through the 1960s, weaving together insights from cultural, environmental, and city planning history. The book has much to contribute to studies of urban development and city planning, especially Devienne's analysis of the beach lobby, which she argues emerged in the early 20th century in response to a perceived crisis on the coast.
It also contemplates the unfolding climate crisis of the 21st century. What will the California dream of coastal living and beachfront leisure look like as the climate crisis and rapid sea level rise increasingly threaten Los Angeles beaches?
Read the full JAPA review by Kara Murphy Schlichting, Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
The Ethics of Cities: Shaping Policy for a Sustainable and Just Future
Timothy Beatley, 2024, University of North Carolina Press, 248 pp, $27.95
Can a city be ethical? This book's main approach is to raise this question and more about how ethics might be applied to cities.
Early chapters explore philosophical concepts, such as teleological (consequences-based) and deontological (principles-based) ethical theory, values, the virtuous individual, citizenship, rights, and freedoms. However, the book's focus is not on philosophy but rather the application of a humanistic, environmentally oriented ethical viewpoint in planning. Other chapters consider policing and the use of force, surveillance and privacy, local democracy and shared governance, public spaces, public health, biophilic cities, and a city's duty to the future and the larger world.
Read the full JAPA review by Stephen M. Wheeler, University of California, Davis.
Outside the Outside: The New Politics of Suburbs
Matt Hern, 2024, Verso, 192 pp, $24.95
This book is an ambitious exploration of what it means to be suburban and calls for a reformulation of the dominant notion that suburbs are socially, culturally, and economically subordinate to urban centers. Instead, according to author Hern, suburbs — in their contemporary trend of being receivers for largely racialized and immigrant communities — have important stories to tell about migration, community, and struggle; stories that are more often neglected once the displaced exit the city.
Hern visits and examines several suburban locations including Surrey (a suburb of Vancouver), Gresham (a suburb of Portland, Oregon), and Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis made internationally famous for the uprisings after Michael Brown's murder by police.
Read the full JAPA review by Lisa Berglund, Dalhousie University.
Not in My Gayborhood! Gay Neighborhoods and the Rise of the Vicarious Citizen
Theodore Greene, 2024, Columbia University Press, 320 pp, $32
This book offers a compelling exploration of the evolving dynamics of gay neighborhoods, particularly in Washington, D.C. Greene expands the concept of vicarious citizenship, describing how nonresidents actively engage with these neighborhoods, shaping their cultural and political vibrancy.
At a time when gentrification and displacement threaten marginalized communities, Greene challenges conventional notions of belonging by examining how vicarious citizens — former residents, allies, and others — continue to assert their presence in these spaces.
This book's implications for urban planning and policy are crucial in recognizing diverse forms of community engagement and advocating for policies that support both residents and nonresidents.
Read the full JAPA review by Manish Chalana, University of Washington.
At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America
Stacy Torres, 2025, University of California Press, 368 pp, $29.95
In the next few decades, the population older than 65-years in the U.S. is projected to increase to 73.1 million (20.6%) in 2030 and 80.8 million (21.6%) in 2040. While many authors have focused on aging in place, the loneliness crisis, so-called third places, and commercial gentrification, this book is an ethnographic study that combines all these aspects, focusing on third places.
Torres discusses the challenges of aging in New York City, including declining physical mobility; difficulties performing activities of daily living; fewer third places because of commercial gentrification; and losing friends, relatives, and familiar strangers due to aging. She focuses on how, why, and what facilitates developing a sense of connection and good networks of social ties in these third places, unpacking the multiple meanings of place.
Read the full JAPA review by Katrin B. Anacker, George Mason University.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
