Urban Design for an Urban Century: Shaping More Livable, Equitable, and Resilient Cities

A comprehensive, completely up–to–date guide to the latest best practices in urban design This entirely updated new Second Edition of Urban Design for an Urban Century offers a complete and thorough introduction to urban design, covering the demographic, environmental, economic, and social issues that shape urbanism today. The book begins with an historical survey of trends and practices in Western urban designfrom the earliest organic cities to the rise and subsequent decline of industrialized citiesas a foundation and context for the state of modern practice. It then moves on to discuss emerging forces shaping urban design such as the recentralization of populations as people move back into cities from suburbs, the emergence of smart growth in urban environments, the growing social impacts of economic disparities, the pressure to balance individual and community needs and rights in the public realm, and similar dynamics. Additionally, the book features new discussions of decision–making processes and implementation strategies, resiliency, and expanded coverage of sustainability issues, both local and global. Finally, the book describes current theories of urbanism, including new urbanism and landscape urbanism, before finishing with a discussion of principles, strategies, and process and how these three elements shape urban design for everything from ecodistricts and retrofitted suburban downtowns to New York Citys National 9/11 Memorial. This new Second Edition integrates new case studies throughout the text exploring urban projects from Singapore to Caracas to Chicago that illuminate the opportunities and challenges in an unprecedented era of urban design.

Introduction Urban Design—A Social and Civic Art Chapter 1 Roots of Western Urban Form: Centralization First Cities Rebirth of European Cities: “organic” cities of the Late Middle Ages Reintroduction of Classical Learning: “geometric” cities of the Renaissance The Emergence of Merchant Cities: integrating Renaissance ideas and the marketplace The Grid Reaches the New World The Industrial Revolution Chapter 2 Decentralization: The Rise and Decline of Industrial Cities “Proto” Urban Design: Rejecting a Classical Past to Shape an Industrial Future Chapter 3 Recentralization: The Forces Shaping 21st–Century Urbanism Walkability Displaces Cars as the Genesis of Urban Form Forces shaping 21st–century urbanism Chapter  4  Recentralization: 21st–century Urbanism Takes Shape Traveling Along the Smart Growth ‘Transect’ The costs of success Balancing individual and community: public realm Chapter 5 Theories of urbanism Formal urbanisms Syncretic urbanism Chapter 6 Urban design for an urban century: principles, strategies and process Principles Strategies to achieve the principles: policies, planning, and placemaking Process that supports the principles Afterword

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, DPACSA, is the principal of Lance Jay Brown Architecture + Urban Design in NYC, Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design, and ACSA Distinguished Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY. He was elected 2014 President of the AIA New York Chapter, is co–founder of its Design for Risk and Reconstruction Committee, and a founding Board Member of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization. He contributed to and co–edited Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space (2012) and co–authored The Legacy Project: New Housing New York/Via Verde (2013). In 2007 he was awarded the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education. He has served as director of the School of Architecture at CCNY, director of the City College Architectural Center, and assistant director for programs at the National Endowment for the Arts. David Dixon, FAIA, is an urban designer who lives and works in Boston. In 2003, as President of the Boston Society of Architects, he organized Myth and Reality, the First National Conference on Density to challenge widely–held negative associations about the concept of urban density. In 2008 he received the American Institute of Architects Thomas Jefferson Medal for a lifetime of... significant achievement in creating...livable neighborhoods, vibrant civic spaces, and vital downtowns. For more than 20 years he led Goody Clancys planning and urban design practice, which earned the American Planning Associations 2013 Firm Award for Excellence in Planning. In 2014, David joined Stantec to initiate a broadly interdisciplinary practice to support communities in meeting the unprecedented opportunities and challenges of this rapidly evolving urban era. The late Oliver Gillham, AIA, was an architect and city planner, as well as the founder of Gillham Gander Associates. He was also the coauthor of The Limitless City: A Primer on the Urban Sprawl Debate .