Trams Or Tailfins?

Trams Or Tailfins?

Author: Jan L. Logemann

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-11-28

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0226491498

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In the years that followed World War II, both the United States and the newly formed West German republic had an opportunity to remake their economies. Since then, much has been made of a supposed “Americanization” of European consumer societies—in Germany and elsewhere. Arguing against these foggy notions, Jan L. Logemann takes a comparative look at the development of postwar mass consumption in West Germany and the United States and the emergence of discrete consumer modernities. In Trams or Tailfins?, Logemann explains how the decisions made at this crucial time helped to define both of these economic superpowers in the second half of the twentieth century. While Americans splurged on private cars and bought goods on credit in suburban shopping malls, Germans rebuilt public transit and developed pedestrian shopping streets in their city centers—choices that continue to shape the quality and character of life decades later. Outlining the abundant differences in the structures of consumer society, consumer habits, and the role of public consumption in these countries, Logemann reveals the many subtle ways that the spheres of government, society, and physical space define how we live.


Issues in Urban Economics

Issues in Urban Economics

Author: Harvey S. Perloff

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-18

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13: 1134001215

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Classic economic considerations applied to the crucial urban problems of poverty, racial segregation, urban renewal, transportation, and education. Originally published in 1968


Car Country

Car Country

Author: Christopher W. Wells

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2013-05-15

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0295804475

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For most people in the United States, going almost anywhere begins with reaching for the car keys. This is true, Christopher Wells argues, because the United States is Car Country—a nation dominated by landscapes that are difficult, inconvenient, and often unsafe to navigate by those who are not sitting behind the wheel of a car. The prevalence of car-dependent landscapes seems perfectly natural to us today, but it is, in fact, a relatively new historical development. In Car Country, Wells rejects the idea that the nation's automotive status quo can be explained as a simple byproduct of an ardent love affair with the automobile. Instead, he takes readers on a tour of the evolving American landscape, charting the ways that transportation policies and land-use practices have combined to reshape nearly every element of the built environment around the easy movement of automobiles. Wells untangles the complicated relationships between automobiles and the environment, allowing readers to see the everyday world in a completely new way. The result is a history that is essential for understanding American transportation and land-use issues today. Watch the book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48LTKOxxrXQ


Spatial, Regional and Population Economics

Spatial, Regional and Population Economics

Author: Mark Perlman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 1351594222

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Originally published in 1972. Hoover’s first publication, his doctoral dissertation, set the stage for a life-long preoccupation with spatial economics from when it was a relatively new field. His work developed the subject and lead him into the area of regional economics, in which he became well known for his contributions to the New York Metropolitan Region Study. In this book his colleagues and a host of former students and admirers present chapters written within his areas of interest in honor of his work, at the end of his academic career, during which he mostly taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Pittsburgh.


The High Cost of Free Parking

The High Cost of Free Parking

Author: Donald Shoup

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-10-20

Total Pages: 1065

ISBN-13: 1351178067

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One of the American Planning Association’s most popular and influential books is finally in paperback, with a new preface from the author on how thinking about parking has changed since this book was first published. In this no-holds-barred treatise, Donald Shoup argues that free parking has contributed to auto dependence, rapid urban sprawl, extravagant energy use, and a host of other problems. Planners mandate free parking to alleviate congestion but end up distorting transportation choices, debasing urban design, damaging the economy, and degrading the environment. Ubiquitous free parking helps explain why our cities sprawl on a scale fit more for cars than for people, and why American motor vehicles now consume one-eighth of the world's total oil production. But it doesn't have to be this way. Shoup proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking – namely, charge fair market prices for curb parking, use the resulting revenue to pay for services in the neighborhoods that generate it, and remove zoning requirements for off-street parking. Such measures, according to the Yale-trained economist and UCLA planning professor, will make parking easier and driving less necessary. Join the swelling ranks of Shoupistas by picking up this book today. You'll never look at a parking spot the same way again.