Product Description: The city is more than just a sum of its buildings; it is the sum of its communities. The most successful urban communities are very often those that are the most diverse – in terms of income, age, family structure and ethnicity – and yet poor urban design and planning can stifle the very diversity that makes communities successful...read more

City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that regulations are a primary detriment to the creation of a desirable urban form. While many contemporary codes encourage sprawl and even urban blight, that hasn't always been the case-and it shouldn't be in the future.  Talen provides a visually rich history, showing how certain eras used rules to produce beautiful, walkable, and sustainable communities, while others created just the opposite. She makes complex regulations understandable, demystifying city rules like zoning and illustrating how written codes translate into real-world consequences. Most importantly, Talen proposes changes to these rules that will actually enhance communities' freedom to develop unique spaces.

Product Description: There are two kinds of urban design: the kind that shapes skylines and the kind that shapes communities. For the past several decades, planners-who are trained to think about how communities function-have ceded their role in urban design to architects-who are trained to think about how buildings look...read more

'Presents the history of American planners' quest for good cities and shows how New Urbanism is a culmination of ideas that have been evolving since the nineteenth century. Identifies four approaches to city-making: incrementalism, plan-making, planned communities, and regionalism. Shows how these cultures connect, overlap, and conflict'--Provided by publisher.

'Presents the history of American planners' quest for good cities and shows how New Urbanism is a culmination of ideas that have been evolving since the nineteenth century. Identifies four approaches to city-making: incrementalism, plan-making, planned communities, and regionalism. Shows how these cultures connect, overlap, and conflict'--Provided by publisher.