But they are the fundamental issues that Greater Cleveland and all metropolitan areas in America will have to address in the coming decades."--BOOK JACKET.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made.... They have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment" —The New York Times • The basis for the HBO documentary streaming on HBO Max For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
""Describes the emerging use of collaborative scenario planning practices in urban and regional planning, and includes case studies, an overview of digital tools, and a project evaluation framework. Concludes with a discussion of how scenarios can be used to address urban inequalities. Intended for a broad audience"--Provided by the publisher"--
Planning Regional Futures is an intellectual call to engage planners to critically explore what planning is, and should be, in how cities and regions are planned. This is in a context where planning is seen to face powerful challenges – professionally, intellectually and practically – in ways arguably not seen before: planning is no longer solely the domain of professional planners but opened-up to a diverse group of actors; the link between the study of cities and regions, which traditionally had a disciplinary home in planning schools and the like, steadily eroded as research increasingly takes place in interdisciplinary research institutes; the advent of real-time modelling posing fundamental challenges for the type of long-term perspective that planning has traditionally afforded; ‘regional planning’ and its mixed record of achievement; and, the link between ‘region’ and ‘planning’ becoming decoupled as alternative regional (and other spatial) approaches to planning have emerged. This book takes up the intellectual and practical challenge of planning regional futures, moving beyond the narrow confines of existing debate and providing a forum for debating what planning is, and should be, for in how we plan cities and regions. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Regional Studies.
A fascinating account of the growing "Yes in My Backyard" urban movement The exorbitant costs of urban housing and the widening gap in income inequality are fueling a combative new movement in cities around the world. A growing number of influential activists aren’t waiting for new public housing to be built. Instead, they’re calling for more construction and denser cities in order to increase affordability. Yes to the City offers an in-depth look at the “Yes in My Backyard” (YIMBY) movement. From its origins in San Francisco to its current cadre of activists pushing for new apartment towers in places like Boulder, Austin, and London, Max Holleran explores how urban density, once maligned for its association with overpopulated slums, has become a rallying cry for millennial activists locked out of housing markets and unable to pay high rents. Holleran provides a detailed account of YIMBY activists campaigning for construction, new zoning rules, better public transit, and even candidates for local and state office. YIMBY groups draw together an unlikely coalition, from developers and real estate agents to environmentalists, and Holleran looks at the increasingly contentious battles between market-driven pragmatists and rent-control idealists. Arguing that advocates for more housing must carefully weigh their demands for supply with the continuing damage of gentrification, he shows that these individuals see high-density urbanism and walkable urban spaces as progressive statements about the kind of society they would like to create. Chronicling a major shift in housing activism during the past twenty years, Yes to the City considers how one movement has reframed conversations about urban growth.
The New Localism provides a roadmap for change that starts in the communities where most people live and work. In their new book, The New Localism, urban experts Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak reveal where the real power to create change lies and how it can be used to address our most serious social, economic, and environmental challenges. Power is shifting in the world: downward from national governments and states to cities and metropolitan communities; horizontally from the public sector to networks of public, private and civic actors; and globally along circuits of capital, trade, and innovation. This new locus of power—this new localism—is emerging by necessity to solve the grand challenges characteristic of modern societies: economic competitiveness, social inclusion and opportunity; a renewed public life; the challenge of diversity; and the imperative of environmental sustainability. Where rising populism on the right and the left exploits the grievances of those left behind in the global economy, new localism has developed as a mechanism to address them head on. New localism is not a replacement for the vital roles federal governments play; it is the ideal complement to an effective federal government, and, currently, an urgently needed remedy for national dysfunction. In The New Localism, Katz and Nowak tell the stories of the cities that are on the vanguard of problem solving. Pittsburgh is catalyzing inclusive growth by inventing and deploying new industries and technologies. Indianapolis is governing its city and metropolis through a network of public, private and civic leaders. Copenhagen is using publicly owned assets like their waterfront to spur large scale redevelopment and finance infrastructure from land sales. Out of these stories emerge new norms of growth, governance, and finance and a path toward a more prosperous, sustainable, and inclusive society. Katz and Nowak imagine a world in which urban institutions finance the future through smart investments in innovation, infrastructure and children and urban intermediaries take solutions created in one city and adapt and tailor them to other cities with speed and precision. As Katz and Nowak show us in The New Localism, “Power now belongs to the problem solvers.”
Why do businesses still value urban life over the suburbs or countryside? This accessible book makes the case for Face-to-Face contact, still considered crucial to many 21st century economies, and provides tools for thinking about the future of places from market towns to World Cities.