Describing a wide range of communities, this record offers practical information for sustainability-oriented developers and urban-design professionals. Packed with outstanding photography, this overview of projects developed over the past 50 years discusses the importance of open space, mixed housing types, connectivity, and other smart-growth features in master-planned communities. This book is a must read for those in the real estate industry, including developers, planners, architects, and consultants.
New towns—large, comprehensively planned developments on newly urbanized land—boast a mix of spaces that, in their ideal form, provide opportunities for all of the activities of daily life. From garden cities to science cities, new capitals to large military facilities, hundreds were built in the twentieth century and their approaches to planning and development were influential far beyond the new towns themselves. Although new towns are notoriously difficult to execute and their popularity has waxed and waned, major new town initiatives are increasing around the globe, notably in East Asia, South Asia, and Africa. New Towns for the Twenty-First Century considers the ideals behind new-town development, the practice of building them, and their outcomes. A roster of international and interdisciplinary contributors examines their design, planning, finances, management, governance, quality of life, and sustainability. Case studies provide histories of new towns in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe and impart lessons learned from practitioners. The volume identifies opportunities afforded by new towns for confronting future challenges related to climate change, urban population growth, affordable housing, economic development, and quality of life. Featuring inventories of classic new towns, twentieth-century new towns with populations over 30,000, and twenty-first-century new towns, the volume is a valuable resource for governments, policy makers, and real estate developers as well as planners, designers, and educators. Contributors: Sandy Apgar, Sai Balakrishnan, JaapJan Berg, Paul Buckhurst, Felipe Correa, Carl Duke, Reid Ewing, Ann Forsyth, Robert Freestone, Shikyo Fu, Pascaline Gaborit, Elie Gamburg, Alexander Garvin, David R. Godschalk, Tony Green, ChengHe Guan, Rachel Keeton, Steven Kellenberg, Kyung-Min Kim, Gene Kohn, Todd Mansfield, Robert W. Marans, Robert Nelson, Pike Oliver, Richard Peiser, Michelle Provoost, Peter G. Rowe, Jongpil Ryu, Andrew Stokols, Adam Tanaka, Jamie von Klemperer, Fulong Wu, Ying Xu, Anthony Gar-On Yeh, Chaobin Zhou.
Gated Communities provides a historic, socio-political and contemporary cultural perspective of gated communities. In doing so it offers a different lens through which to view the historical vernacular background of this now global phenomenon. The book presents a collection of new writing on the issue by an international and interdisciplinary group of contributors. The authors review current thinking on gated communities and consider the sustainability issues that these contemporary 'lifestyle' communities raise. The authors argue that there are links that can be drawn between the historic gated homesteads and cities, found in much of the world, and today's Western-style secure complexes. Global examples of gated communities, and their historical context, are presented throughout the book. The authors also comment on how sustainability issues have impacted on these communities. The book concludes by considering how the historic measures up with the contemporary in terms of sustainability function, and aesthetic.
Gated communities are a new "hot button" in many North American cities. From Boston to Los Angeles and from Miami to Toronto citizens are taking sides in the debate over whether any neighborhood should be walled and gated, preventing intrusion or inspection by outsiders. This debate has intensified since the hard cover edition of this book was published in 1997. Since then the number of gated communities has risen dramatically. In fact, new homes in over 40 percent of planned developments are gated n the West, the South, and southeastern parts of the United States. Opposition to this phenomenon is growing too. In the small and relatively homogenous town of Worcester, Massachusetts, a band of college students from Brown University and the University of Chicago picketed the Wexford Village in November of 1998 waving placards that read "Gates Divide." These students are symbolic of a much larger wave of citizens asking questions about the need for and the social values of gates that divide one portion of a community from another.
A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.
Properly planned and visualized, large-scale developments can be successfully constructed, whether as master planned communities, planned unit developments, or new towns. Fundamentals of Land Development provides an in-depth approach to the design, planning, and development of large land areas into comprehensively designed communities. This book provides in-depth discussions of the full range of development tasks involved in any large development project, from site and land use selection, market analysis, preparing the land use plan and impact statements, to getting approval from the municipality and community, permitting and approval, scheduling and cost management, and the basics of engineering systems and design. Developers and other stake-holders will find guidance on such issues as: • How real-world development is driven by profits, and how team members can maximize profits while developing creatively and responsibly • Site selection and acquisition • Entering the growing business of retirement (active adult) community development Illustrated with real-world case studies drawn from the authors own experience, Fundamentals of Land Development is a practical manual for developers looking to improve the profitability of their projects and gain a better understanding of what all team members undertake in a project of this size and complexity.
Community is a fundamental life search and one of the key aspects people look for in a congregation. But community can't be forced, controlled, or easily created. The problem, says Joseph R. Myers, is that churches are too focused on developing programs instead of concentrating on environments where community will spontaneously emerge. Organic Community challenges key leaders to become environmentalists--people who create or shape environments. Outlining nine organizational tools for creating a healthy environment, Myers shows readers how to diagnose their current situation and implement patterns that will develop possibilities for healthy communities.
Questions of how the design of cities can respond to the challenge of climate change dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon responds to these questions. He addresses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design recommendations. No other book so clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. No other book takes on this breadth of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to such convincing and practical solutions.
This book sets out how people’s lives can be positively transformed through diverse forms of community involvement. It shows how communities can become more collaborative and resilient in dealing with the problems they face and provides a guide to what a holistic policy agenda for community-based transformation should encompass.
As America becomes more and more racially diverse, Rich Benjamin noticed a phenomenon: Some communities were actually getting less multicultural. So he got out a map, found the whitest towns in the USA -- and moved in. A journalist-adventurer, Benjamin packed his bags and embarked on a 26,909-mile journey throughout the heart of white America, to some of the fastest-growing and whitest locales in our nation. Benjamin calls these enclaves "Whitopias." In this groundbreaking book, he shares what he learned as a black man in Whitopia. Benjamin's journey to unlock the mysteries of Whitopia took him from a three-day white separatist retreat with links to Aryan Nations in North Idaho to exurban mega-churches down South, and many points in between. A compelling raconteur, bon vivant, and scholar, Benjamin reveals what Whitopias are like and explores the urgent social and political implications of this startling phenomenon. Benjamin's groundbreaking study is one of few to have illuminated in advance the social and political forces propelling the rise of Donald Trump. After all, Trump carried 94 percent of America's Whitopian counties. And he won a median 67 percent of the vote in Whitopia compared to 46 percent of the vote nationwide. Leaving behind speculation or sensationalism, Benjamin explores the future of whiteness and race in an increasingly multicultural nation.
