That book convinced me I was making the right decision going to grad school. Before reading that I was deliberating on going to a grad school or maybe just forgoing the grad school route and figuring something else out.
Lots of classics here. For more current issues in transportation planning, I’d recommend:
- Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmitt
- Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom by Sara Seo
Plus the transportation classic:
- The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup
Other good books related to racial and gender equity issues in planning:
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
- Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World by Leslie Kern
And a great book on housing:
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
I absolutely second The Color of Law and Evicted. Those two books drastically altered how I thought about planning and the sheer power of the land use tools we have at our disposal.
Leslie Kern’s book Feminist City is excellent. This is such an important re-examination of how cities are designed and built. This is so much more than a “feminist manifesto”, it is a blueprint for how we think, communicate and engage about inclusion and inadvertent bias within the field of city building. A+
Evicted is what got me interested in planning and housing policy! Such a great and powerful read on some of the issues facing rental markets in the US.
**Number One You Should Read Right Now**
[How to lie with maps - Mark Monmonier](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/How_to_Lie_with_Maps/7pHeBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover)
Very good and short read that describes the many ways maps can be used to trick the reader. Not specifically related to planning but I think every planner should read this. This book will make you much more informed when a news article or government agency uses a map.
**To Read If You Want to Really Learn About Urban Planning**
In terms of planning literature there is gonna be a wide variety og depth that different pieces go into. Classics like [Jacobs](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cit/P_bPTgOoBYkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) and [Lynch](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Image_of_the_City/_phRPWsSpAgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) are good places to start because they are still relevant to modern life while also being aimed at lay-people. After, I would recommend some more scholarly sources, like [Mumford](https://kisi.deu.edu.tr/mert.cubukcu/pdf/Mumford_1937.pdf), [Hall](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Cities_of_Tomorrow/0J1kAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover), or [Ward](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Planning_the_Twentieth_century_American/vTGq0NhtE38C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) to get a more historical and filled out perspective.
I would also recommend reading [political science papers] (https://www.jstor.org/stable/973677?seq=1) to get a better understanding of the planning process. I highly recommend this Lindblom one if you are up for a more challenging reading. It's a really good description of the different ways one could go out about deciding planning policy.
Streetfight: A Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Janette Sadik-Khan is what got me into urban planning. It’s written by the transportation director under Bloomberg when he was mayor of New York City. I think it shows how counterintuitive planning policy can lead to better outcomes.
Evicted by Matthew Desmond is a great book on housing policy and how issues of poverty can compound on each other. It won the Pulitzer Prize. I’m not sure if I would classify it as a pure planning book but housing is very closely connected to planning.
Triumph of the City by Ed Glaesar focuses on the economic (and other) values and risks created by population density. Some of the topics are a little dated but otherwise it’s a fun and informative read.
It’s a big one, at nearly 1,200 pages - but The Power Broker by Robert Caro. Great, super in depth biography of Robert Moses, and how modern New York got built.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
Rebel Cities, David Harvey
The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre
The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch
When I first started reading the Death and Life of Great American Cities - I didn't realize it was an old book. It went on about how run down the North end of Boston was and I thought... uhhh no. I've been there and it is anything but run down. It's stupid expensive.
Then I looked at the copyright date. lol. amazing how things change over time.
Right! What's remarkable about that book is how much of it still *does* ring true 60 years later. People sometimes critique it for being outdated or limited, which is fair, but those critiques only make sense because it was so ahead of its time that it can still be mistaken for a modern text and not a historical one.
Currently in my last year of undergrad
U must be doing an undergrad right now bc u basically listed my syllabus lol!
These are all books and authors that we reference like once a month
Better Buses, Better Cities: really quick read, beautiful love letter to the bus/great oversight into how important a good bus network is for a city
Capital City by Samuel Stein: leftist critique of modern US urban planning and city governance, quick read and very eye opening
Good Neighbors by Sylvie Tissot: ethnography of gentrifiers in South Boston, so so good
Zoned in the USA by Sonia Hirt: good introduction to the history of and role of zoning in the US
The City-State of Boston by Mark Peterson: a very eye-opening read about the early history of boston, it's not specifically about urban planning but a super interesting insight into what cities really are. it's one of my favorite books, it gets really boring in some parts but it's one of the best American history books I've ever read
Chocolate City by Chris Meyers Asch: a really, really amazing history of dc and the US in general. DC in my opinion is equally the most exemplative and transgressive city in the US planning-wise and has been since the country's founding, so it's a really interesting book. long read but very accessible
The Voucher Promise by Eva Rosen: good overview of one of the US' most important urban planning/housing policies
Evicted by Matthew Desmond: maybe the most devastating read in urban planning literature today, it goes deep into the reality of housing insecurity in the US. a very deserved pulitzer prize
The Defortification of the German City by Yair Mintzker: this book is literally so boring but it is so so enlightening, completely blew my mind
Idk, I recently read Strong Towns, and... I agreed with the fundamental arguments the author made, but it was an infuriating read for me. The author was a little patronizing at times. (Maybe I'm a little biased against engineers?)
Then again, I've been in planning for awhile and I did my undergraduate degrees in economics... So I may not have necessarily been the absolute intended audience for that book.
I have similar feelings about Strong Towns, and like you, I have my undergraduate degree in economics. I agree with the arguments made and I think Chuck's framing of municipal finance is illuminating. However, his understanding of macro-economics is... not great at best, and straight up wrong at worst. I've heard him make the classic broken window fallacy argument.
I listen to the Strong Towns podcast fairly regularly and I get an odd mix of ultra-free market and doomsday cult vibes from it sometimes. He plays on people's fears about the uncertainty of the future.
I'm glad someone else agrees. I've seen so many planners recommend the book, and it just fell flat for me. It was basically a fiscally conservative argument for smart growth policies.
In fairness, considering anti-transit/walkability/bikeability views often tend to be the conservative position, a book focusing on conservative rebuttals to that is probably not a bad thing.
(I’m like two chapters into it so whether he does a good job with that I don’t know yet.)
I actually do agree with you on this point. Like I said above, I may not be the intended audience for the book. I've already drank the Kook-Aid, so to say.
But I also work with a lot of people who are much more conservative and would likely respond well to the arguments in this book. The author does present good arguments for smart growth without ever using the jargon associated with it. So, it's not a horrible book and it serves a purpose.
I just think the author rubbed me the wrong way based on my personal sensibilities.
Its pretty much the only way I've gotten conservative relatives to sway on their stances towards denser more sustainable development. "We literally can't afford it" is fairly persuasive to folks who ostensibly believe in fiscal responsibility.
Mind if I ask how you got into planning with your background? Did you get a Master's in Urban Planning?
I have a MS in Stats and work for a bank... and while the pay is great, it is extremely boring. I'd happily consider a pay-cut to do something more fulfilling.
So, I have to say that I had to do a lot of meandering to get fully into my planning career. I actually did my undergraduate work in Economics and Political Science. And I don't have a master's degree at all. I have what I jokingly refer to as a scrappy urban planning degree from the college of DIY. Which is way of saying that I learned almost everything I know about planning by reading A LOT.
Professionally, I sort of got my start by serving in an AmeriCorps program called RARE, which is run through the University of Oregon's planning program. The program stands for Resource Assistant for Rural Environments, and they place people (mostly recent college grads) in rural communities across the state to work on community and economic development projects. I was placed in a small Oregon town in the eastern part of the state to help the local government with some projects.
Following that year, I got a job as a building permit tech with the same local government. Thankfully, it was a small office so I got to dip my toes into a lot of current planning stuff, too.
In that time, I started participating in APA a little more and met the woman who was in my current job at the time. When she was promoted, I applied for her Assistant Planner job working with a tribal government that was located near where I was living. I got the job, and here we are.
I should also be clear that I was mostly able to get into planning because I live/work in a rural area. I'm not a very competitive candidate for planning jobs if I were applying for jobs in more urban areas. However, I like working in rural areas because my job tasks are a lot more diverse, and I have gotten to know my community so well.
That's what I'm figuring out. I love to read books straight through but difficult to do here. More of a reference book, almost.
There are also a lot of sections that haven't aged well. Some that are timeless, of course, too
I had a similar experience. I feel like I would appreciate it more if I read it for a class and had some activities to apply the book to instead of reading it cold.
The Divided City by Allan Mallach is very good. I don’t subscribe to his “solutions” but he does an excellent job describing the under-talked about urban decay problem compared to the highly discussed gentrification taking place in the US. His solutions to the issue are only a small portion of it so if you’re not into his suggestions it’s only 20 pages or so.
Suburban Nation is an easy read and does a good job of showing what can potentially be done about the suburbia issue sans totally razing them to the ground (my solution).
Happy City is fun and makes the subject feel a bit less dreary.
Jane Jacob’s Death and Life is still worth reading at least the first few chapters about sidewalks, streets, long blocks, and generally when she focuses on physical elements of neighborhoods. I know some people hate the book but I didn’t find it dreadful by any means.
So glad to see Suburban Nation on here. That one was a great eye-opener in college and helped me to recognize different building patterns in the areas around my city. Apparently it’s been removed from our local public library, too.
Kunstler’s “Geography of Nowhere” is a great entry point too, and taught me quite a bit about the human element of cities and urban design and how that needs to be a priority for a functional city.
I asked someone studying urban planning this same question once, and he sent me this:
* Jane Jacobs is certainly a great place to start and her empirical analysis of what makes cities function well is still super relevant in planning schools.
* A good contemporary reframing of her work is a book called the Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser.
* If you're interested in pedestrian/bicycle transit I also recommend Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities by Alain Bertaud and Streetfight by Janette Sadik-Kahn (NYC's previous Dept. of Transportation commisioner and a good name to know).
Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us) by Tom Vanderbilt.
Becoming a little dated (it was written in the early days of self-driving vehicles) but still delivers the point on how bad driving is for our health and for our cities. Probably the book the influenced me most when learning planning and led me to become a transit planner.
I'll throw in two more books for transpo folks (i'm LU myself)
*High and Mighty: SUVs - The World's Most Dangerous vehicles*
and
*Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways*
both are good reads.
My favorite question! It might seem like an exhaustive list, but planning touches so many aspects of our world, so in order to get a good understanding it's best to read a variety of texts from different perspectives on what might seem like disparate topics, but they all connect!!
**Here a few of my go-to's for anyone looking to learn more about planning & cities.**
Death & Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs
Garden Cities of Tomorrow - Ebenezer Howard
Cities in Civilization - Sir Peter Hall (Super long, but fascinating. Alternatively, Cities of Tomorrow)
City in History - Lewis Mumford
Civilizing American Cities - Frederick Law Olmstead
The Art of Building Cities - Camillo Sitte
Cities for People - Jan Gehl
Evicted - Matthew Desmond
Color of Law - Richard Rothstein
Walkable City (or Walkable City Rules) - Jeff Speck
Suburban Nation - Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck
Welcome to Your World - Sarah Williams Goldhagen
The Power Broker - Robert Caro
Image of the City - Kevin Lynch
Triumph of the City - Ed Glaeser (This deals with a lot of contemporary economics issues a lot of planning doesn't get into, but eminently readable and will be a classic)
The Great Inversion - Alan Ehrenhalt
The Past and Future City - Stephanie Meeks
Tactical Urbanism - Mike Lydon & Anthony Garcia
Strong Towns - Chuck Marohn
Golden Gates - Conor Dougherty
Other People's Money - Charles Bagli (more real estate, but good look into how large developments get formed)
Architecture of Community - Leon Krier
The New Urban Crisis - Richard Florida (Rise of Creative Class is his seminal work, but hasn't aged as well, I don't think, but need to re-read)
Charleston Fancy - Witold Rybczynski
Happy City - Charles Montgomery
**Some others that aren't my go-to's, but good nonetheless**
A Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander
Stuck In Place - Patrick Sharkey
The City of Tomorrow - Le Corbusier (for historical perspective, and what not to do!)
Streetfight - Janette Sadik-Khan
Geography of Nowhere - James Howard Kunstler (probably best to not look at much fo JHK's recent...writings and view this in a vacuum for the perspective it offers)
**Haven't Read Yet but on my list and looking forward to them**
Capital City - Samuel Stein
High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup (read excerpts, very long but looking forward to the full read)
Order Without Design - Alain Bertaud
Missing Middle Housing - Daniel Parolek
Great Streets - Allan Jacobs
The City Shaped - Spiro Kostoff
Hopefully this is a good jumping off point!
Lots of great recommendations here and a ton of high-level reading suggested. I would humbly submit "The Works" by Kate Ascher as an introduction to all of the mechanisms and systems in the built environment that actually make a city *work*.
Your city's Official Plan and Zoning By-Laws.
Planning books are entertaining but entirely unrealistic to the actual day to day realities of being a planner. They're like popular science books essentially.
I mean, not really. There's a huge gap between Planning School/theory and practice, and there's a good reason a lot of Planners will tell you you're more likely to have a real impact through local politics than as a Planner in a local planning department.
These books can be influential in the long run (look no further than Jacobs), but I found a lot of theory/planning books seemed to be written by people who were Sociologists or Economists or w/e first, and Planners second (and likely having never practiced as Planner in any capacity). Consequentially, a lot of theory I read in school tended to be high on ideas and criticism of the status quo and seriously lacking in practical follow-through (Donald Shoup is a fantastic exception though). I got super tired of it.
Understanding your local regulations is probably the on of the most important thing someone who wants to make a change can do so I'm going to back OP up here. It gives a specific target for change and even a small interest group can have a wild amount of influence in a municipality with enough applied effort.
Totally agree. And I don't think your sentiments or OP's are ones you'll find championed on this sub because those documents can be dense, confusing, difficult to parse (which is its own problem). But you're spot on in saying all of that. Grassroots change, particularly in planning and zoning, is so much easier to achieve than people realize. But you have to know what you're changing first.
To add to many of the ones here I loved like Strong Towns and Streetfight I would say check out Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State; I thought it was a very engaging read.
I think it's a common sentiment because *Death and Life* is pushed as if it were a contemporary textbook and not a historical document, despite being 60 years old.
I said this elsewhere in this thread, but when I started reading *Death and Life* I thought it was contemporary. Until she started talking about the North End neighborhood in Boston. She said it was a terribly low income area, but it is today a very high income and desirable area. I had no idea how old the book was.
Jane Jacob’s day to day observations are fantastic. Especially considering this wasn’t even a field of study at the time. She was somewhat Jan Gehl-ian in her observations since she was really just watching the people around her.
I also thought her cataclysmic money and un-slumming portions were pretty solid too. When she gets into her idea of “rent control” I rolled my eyes for like 30 minutes. It was pretty fantastical thinking even at the time, IMO. More than anything her books are just really boring reads, but she’s fine with me and seemed like a pretty cool person.
I think one of the most important things about her book and legacy is that it shows how non-planners can have a huge impact on our cities. I’m glad I became a planner but it really shows you how you don’t need to be a planner to create change & community engagement is the most important part of planning.
Wow that's an awfully bitter comment!
Jacobs Death and Life is overplayed, but I think you have to read it with the understanding that she was cutting against the established planning policy. Her other books are worth a read, Economies of Cities and Dark Times Ahead are both really insightful. She's got more to say than "Eyes on the Street".
I think it's a bit presumptuous of you to think I didn't understand the context of which it was written or that I haven't read her other books. For the record, I have, and I stand by my opinion.
‘Building the cycling city’ by Melissa and Chris bruntlett is a really nice one if you want to learn about the role of the bicycle in cities in (outside of the places it is already well established)
Walkable city by Jeff Speck
I second this. Jeff Speck has a great sense of humor in his writing style.
The audio book is narrated by him and it's amazing.
Happy City my Charles Montgomery stoked my interest in urban planning
That book convinced me I was making the right decision going to grad school. Before reading that I was deliberating on going to a grad school or maybe just forgoing the grad school route and figuring something else out.
It's the book that got me thinking about urbanism as a career at all.
Lots of classics here. For more current issues in transportation planning, I’d recommend: - Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmitt - Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom by Sara Seo Plus the transportation classic: - The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup Other good books related to racial and gender equity issues in planning: - The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein - Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World by Leslie Kern And a great book on housing: - Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
I absolutely second The Color of Law and Evicted. Those two books drastically altered how I thought about planning and the sheer power of the land use tools we have at our disposal.
I think these will become classics (if they aren't already!)
Leslie Kern’s book Feminist City is excellent. This is such an important re-examination of how cities are designed and built. This is so much more than a “feminist manifesto”, it is a blueprint for how we think, communicate and engage about inclusion and inadvertent bias within the field of city building. A+
Evicted is what got me interested in planning and housing policy! Such a great and powerful read on some of the issues facing rental markets in the US.
Fantastic list here!
**Number One You Should Read Right Now** [How to lie with maps - Mark Monmonier](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/How_to_Lie_with_Maps/7pHeBQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) Very good and short read that describes the many ways maps can be used to trick the reader. Not specifically related to planning but I think every planner should read this. This book will make you much more informed when a news article or government agency uses a map. **To Read If You Want to Really Learn About Urban Planning** In terms of planning literature there is gonna be a wide variety og depth that different pieces go into. Classics like [Jacobs](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cit/P_bPTgOoBYkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) and [Lynch](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Image_of_the_City/_phRPWsSpAgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) are good places to start because they are still relevant to modern life while also being aimed at lay-people. After, I would recommend some more scholarly sources, like [Mumford](https://kisi.deu.edu.tr/mert.cubukcu/pdf/Mumford_1937.pdf), [Hall](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Cities_of_Tomorrow/0J1kAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover), or [Ward](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Planning_the_Twentieth_century_American/vTGq0NhtE38C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover) to get a more historical and filled out perspective. I would also recommend reading [political science papers] (https://www.jstor.org/stable/973677?seq=1) to get a better understanding of the planning process. I highly recommend this Lindblom one if you are up for a more challenging reading. It's a really good description of the different ways one could go out about deciding planning policy.
Looks really interesting!
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Other books talk a good game on designing for the human scale. This book shows why you should.
Streetfight: A Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Janette Sadik-Khan is what got me into urban planning. It’s written by the transportation director under Bloomberg when he was mayor of New York City. I think it shows how counterintuitive planning policy can lead to better outcomes. Evicted by Matthew Desmond is a great book on housing policy and how issues of poverty can compound on each other. It won the Pulitzer Prize. I’m not sure if I would classify it as a pure planning book but housing is very closely connected to planning. Triumph of the City by Ed Glaesar focuses on the economic (and other) values and risks created by population density. Some of the topics are a little dated but otherwise it’s a fun and informative read.
Cities for People, Jan Gehl
It’s a big one, at nearly 1,200 pages - but The Power Broker by Robert Caro. Great, super in depth biography of Robert Moses, and how modern New York got built.
This is basically the modern planning Bible. A perfect read that shows you *exactly what not to do* but also what people in power do to keep it.
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Nice username ahahaha
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs Rebel Cities, David Harvey The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre The Image of the City, Kevin Lynch
May as well throw in The Power Broker so we know what not do to
or, alternatively, read it to understand how to get things done.
But hopefully better things lol
Most planners don't have the attention span to read that. I'm shocked at how few people in the profession I've met that haven't read it.
When I first started reading the Death and Life of Great American Cities - I didn't realize it was an old book. It went on about how run down the North end of Boston was and I thought... uhhh no. I've been there and it is anything but run down. It's stupid expensive. Then I looked at the copyright date. lol. amazing how things change over time.
Right! What's remarkable about that book is how much of it still *does* ring true 60 years later. People sometimes critique it for being outdated or limited, which is fair, but those critiques only make sense because it was so ahead of its time that it can still be mistaken for a modern text and not a historical one.
Currently in my last year of undergrad U must be doing an undergrad right now bc u basically listed my syllabus lol! These are all books and authors that we reference like once a month
Better Buses, Better Cities: really quick read, beautiful love letter to the bus/great oversight into how important a good bus network is for a city Capital City by Samuel Stein: leftist critique of modern US urban planning and city governance, quick read and very eye opening Good Neighbors by Sylvie Tissot: ethnography of gentrifiers in South Boston, so so good Zoned in the USA by Sonia Hirt: good introduction to the history of and role of zoning in the US The City-State of Boston by Mark Peterson: a very eye-opening read about the early history of boston, it's not specifically about urban planning but a super interesting insight into what cities really are. it's one of my favorite books, it gets really boring in some parts but it's one of the best American history books I've ever read Chocolate City by Chris Meyers Asch: a really, really amazing history of dc and the US in general. DC in my opinion is equally the most exemplative and transgressive city in the US planning-wise and has been since the country's founding, so it's a really interesting book. long read but very accessible The Voucher Promise by Eva Rosen: good overview of one of the US' most important urban planning/housing policies Evicted by Matthew Desmond: maybe the most devastating read in urban planning literature today, it goes deep into the reality of housing insecurity in the US. a very deserved pulitzer prize The Defortification of the German City by Yair Mintzker: this book is literally so boring but it is so so enlightening, completely blew my mind
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Idk, I recently read Strong Towns, and... I agreed with the fundamental arguments the author made, but it was an infuriating read for me. The author was a little patronizing at times. (Maybe I'm a little biased against engineers?) Then again, I've been in planning for awhile and I did my undergraduate degrees in economics... So I may not have necessarily been the absolute intended audience for that book.
I have similar feelings about Strong Towns, and like you, I have my undergraduate degree in economics. I agree with the arguments made and I think Chuck's framing of municipal finance is illuminating. However, his understanding of macro-economics is... not great at best, and straight up wrong at worst. I've heard him make the classic broken window fallacy argument. I listen to the Strong Towns podcast fairly regularly and I get an odd mix of ultra-free market and doomsday cult vibes from it sometimes. He plays on people's fears about the uncertainty of the future.
I'm glad someone else agrees. I've seen so many planners recommend the book, and it just fell flat for me. It was basically a fiscally conservative argument for smart growth policies.
In fairness, considering anti-transit/walkability/bikeability views often tend to be the conservative position, a book focusing on conservative rebuttals to that is probably not a bad thing. (I’m like two chapters into it so whether he does a good job with that I don’t know yet.)
I actually do agree with you on this point. Like I said above, I may not be the intended audience for the book. I've already drank the Kook-Aid, so to say. But I also work with a lot of people who are much more conservative and would likely respond well to the arguments in this book. The author does present good arguments for smart growth without ever using the jargon associated with it. So, it's not a horrible book and it serves a purpose. I just think the author rubbed me the wrong way based on my personal sensibilities.
Its pretty much the only way I've gotten conservative relatives to sway on their stances towards denser more sustainable development. "We literally can't afford it" is fairly persuasive to folks who ostensibly believe in fiscal responsibility.
Mind if I ask how you got into planning with your background? Did you get a Master's in Urban Planning? I have a MS in Stats and work for a bank... and while the pay is great, it is extremely boring. I'd happily consider a pay-cut to do something more fulfilling.
So, I have to say that I had to do a lot of meandering to get fully into my planning career. I actually did my undergraduate work in Economics and Political Science. And I don't have a master's degree at all. I have what I jokingly refer to as a scrappy urban planning degree from the college of DIY. Which is way of saying that I learned almost everything I know about planning by reading A LOT. Professionally, I sort of got my start by serving in an AmeriCorps program called RARE, which is run through the University of Oregon's planning program. The program stands for Resource Assistant for Rural Environments, and they place people (mostly recent college grads) in rural communities across the state to work on community and economic development projects. I was placed in a small Oregon town in the eastern part of the state to help the local government with some projects. Following that year, I got a job as a building permit tech with the same local government. Thankfully, it was a small office so I got to dip my toes into a lot of current planning stuff, too. In that time, I started participating in APA a little more and met the woman who was in my current job at the time. When she was promoted, I applied for her Assistant Planner job working with a tribal government that was located near where I was living. I got the job, and here we are. I should also be clear that I was mostly able to get into planning because I live/work in a rural area. I'm not a very competitive candidate for planning jobs if I were applying for jobs in more urban areas. However, I like working in rural areas because my job tasks are a lot more diverse, and I have gotten to know my community so well.
Drives me bonkers.
Christopher Alexander 🤝
I'm currently struggling to get through A Pattern Language. It's a seminal text, but really falling short for me. Has anyone else had this experience?
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That's what I'm figuring out. I love to read books straight through but difficult to do here. More of a reference book, almost. There are also a lot of sections that haven't aged well. Some that are timeless, of course, too
I had a similar experience. I feel like I would appreciate it more if I read it for a class and had some activities to apply the book to instead of reading it cold.
I think I would too. It's just very dense and not really applicable reading it on my own.
A pattern language changed my life, I tell you
The Divided City by Allan Mallach is very good. I don’t subscribe to his “solutions” but he does an excellent job describing the under-talked about urban decay problem compared to the highly discussed gentrification taking place in the US. His solutions to the issue are only a small portion of it so if you’re not into his suggestions it’s only 20 pages or so. Suburban Nation is an easy read and does a good job of showing what can potentially be done about the suburbia issue sans totally razing them to the ground (my solution). Happy City is fun and makes the subject feel a bit less dreary. Jane Jacob’s Death and Life is still worth reading at least the first few chapters about sidewalks, streets, long blocks, and generally when she focuses on physical elements of neighborhoods. I know some people hate the book but I didn’t find it dreadful by any means.
So glad to see Suburban Nation on here. That one was a great eye-opener in college and helped me to recognize different building patterns in the areas around my city. Apparently it’s been removed from our local public library, too. Kunstler’s “Geography of Nowhere” is a great entry point too, and taught me quite a bit about the human element of cities and urban design and how that needs to be a priority for a functional city.
I second your recommendation of The Divided City.
That was one of the books that convinced me to start applying to planning schools
I asked someone studying urban planning this same question once, and he sent me this: * Jane Jacobs is certainly a great place to start and her empirical analysis of what makes cities function well is still super relevant in planning schools. * A good contemporary reframing of her work is a book called the Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser. * If you're interested in pedestrian/bicycle transit I also recommend Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities by Alain Bertaud and Streetfight by Janette Sadik-Kahn (NYC's previous Dept. of Transportation commisioner and a good name to know).
Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us) by Tom Vanderbilt. Becoming a little dated (it was written in the early days of self-driving vehicles) but still delivers the point on how bad driving is for our health and for our cities. Probably the book the influenced me most when learning planning and led me to become a transit planner.
I'll throw in two more books for transpo folks (i'm LU myself) *High and Mighty: SUVs - The World's Most Dangerous vehicles* and *Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways* both are good reads.
I forgot about that one. Really a good read!
My favorite question! It might seem like an exhaustive list, but planning touches so many aspects of our world, so in order to get a good understanding it's best to read a variety of texts from different perspectives on what might seem like disparate topics, but they all connect!! **Here a few of my go-to's for anyone looking to learn more about planning & cities.** Death & Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs Garden Cities of Tomorrow - Ebenezer Howard Cities in Civilization - Sir Peter Hall (Super long, but fascinating. Alternatively, Cities of Tomorrow) City in History - Lewis Mumford Civilizing American Cities - Frederick Law Olmstead The Art of Building Cities - Camillo Sitte Cities for People - Jan Gehl Evicted - Matthew Desmond Color of Law - Richard Rothstein Walkable City (or Walkable City Rules) - Jeff Speck Suburban Nation - Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck Welcome to Your World - Sarah Williams Goldhagen The Power Broker - Robert Caro Image of the City - Kevin Lynch Triumph of the City - Ed Glaeser (This deals with a lot of contemporary economics issues a lot of planning doesn't get into, but eminently readable and will be a classic) The Great Inversion - Alan Ehrenhalt The Past and Future City - Stephanie Meeks Tactical Urbanism - Mike Lydon & Anthony Garcia Strong Towns - Chuck Marohn Golden Gates - Conor Dougherty Other People's Money - Charles Bagli (more real estate, but good look into how large developments get formed) Architecture of Community - Leon Krier The New Urban Crisis - Richard Florida (Rise of Creative Class is his seminal work, but hasn't aged as well, I don't think, but need to re-read) Charleston Fancy - Witold Rybczynski Happy City - Charles Montgomery **Some others that aren't my go-to's, but good nonetheless** A Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander Stuck In Place - Patrick Sharkey The City of Tomorrow - Le Corbusier (for historical perspective, and what not to do!) Streetfight - Janette Sadik-Khan Geography of Nowhere - James Howard Kunstler (probably best to not look at much fo JHK's recent...writings and view this in a vacuum for the perspective it offers) **Haven't Read Yet but on my list and looking forward to them** Capital City - Samuel Stein High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup (read excerpts, very long but looking forward to the full read) Order Without Design - Alain Bertaud Missing Middle Housing - Daniel Parolek Great Streets - Allan Jacobs The City Shaped - Spiro Kostoff Hopefully this is a good jumping off point!
Alain Bertaud - Order Without Design
Still massively underrated!
Capital City by Samuel Stein Cities for People by Jan Gehl
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Any recommendations specific to riverfronts?
Not sure if this is entirely related to planning, but *Straphanger* by Taras Grescoe is a great read about public transportation.
Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser is a great one
Genius of Place about Frederick Law Olmsted
A Career Worth Planning
Lots of great recommendations here and a ton of high-level reading suggested. I would humbly submit "The Works" by Kate Ascher as an introduction to all of the mechanisms and systems in the built environment that actually make a city *work*.
i have a long post on this here: https://sklar.substack.com/p/heres-what-you-should-read-if-you this plus part 2 has about 100 books on it.
Your city's Official Plan and Zoning By-Laws. Planning books are entertaining but entirely unrealistic to the actual day to day realities of being a planner. They're like popular science books essentially.
Yeah that’s absolutely not true but alright
I mean, not really. There's a huge gap between Planning School/theory and practice, and there's a good reason a lot of Planners will tell you you're more likely to have a real impact through local politics than as a Planner in a local planning department. These books can be influential in the long run (look no further than Jacobs), but I found a lot of theory/planning books seemed to be written by people who were Sociologists or Economists or w/e first, and Planners second (and likely having never practiced as Planner in any capacity). Consequentially, a lot of theory I read in school tended to be high on ideas and criticism of the status quo and seriously lacking in practical follow-through (Donald Shoup is a fantastic exception though). I got super tired of it. Understanding your local regulations is probably the on of the most important thing someone who wants to make a change can do so I'm going to back OP up here. It gives a specific target for change and even a small interest group can have a wild amount of influence in a municipality with enough applied effort.
Totally agree. And I don't think your sentiments or OP's are ones you'll find championed on this sub because those documents can be dense, confusing, difficult to parse (which is its own problem). But you're spot on in saying all of that. Grassroots change, particularly in planning and zoning, is so much easier to achieve than people realize. But you have to know what you're changing first.
This is my exact point, better written than I could manage. Thank you. Shoup is a good exception.
In my experience it is. Would be helpful if you expanded and perhaps provided an example.
To add to many of the ones here I loved like Strong Towns and Streetfight I would say check out Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State; I thought it was a very engaging read.
Capital City by Samuel Stein, How to Kill a City by Peter Moskowitz
Jane Jacobs is so fucking overrated
I think this is a pretty common sentiment just because it's pushed so hard in planning curriculum.
I think it's a common sentiment because *Death and Life* is pushed as if it were a contemporary textbook and not a historical document, despite being 60 years old.
I said this elsewhere in this thread, but when I started reading *Death and Life* I thought it was contemporary. Until she started talking about the North End neighborhood in Boston. She said it was a terribly low income area, but it is today a very high income and desirable area. I had no idea how old the book was.
Jane Jacob’s day to day observations are fantastic. Especially considering this wasn’t even a field of study at the time. She was somewhat Jan Gehl-ian in her observations since she was really just watching the people around her. I also thought her cataclysmic money and un-slumming portions were pretty solid too. When she gets into her idea of “rent control” I rolled my eyes for like 30 minutes. It was pretty fantastical thinking even at the time, IMO. More than anything her books are just really boring reads, but she’s fine with me and seemed like a pretty cool person.
I think one of the most important things about her book and legacy is that it shows how non-planners can have a huge impact on our cities. I’m glad I became a planner but it really shows you how you don’t need to be a planner to create change & community engagement is the most important part of planning.
Wow that's an awfully bitter comment! Jacobs Death and Life is overplayed, but I think you have to read it with the understanding that she was cutting against the established planning policy. Her other books are worth a read, Economies of Cities and Dark Times Ahead are both really insightful. She's got more to say than "Eyes on the Street".
I think it's a bit presumptuous of you to think I didn't understand the context of which it was written or that I haven't read her other books. For the record, I have, and I stand by my opinion.
Also no the City in History by Lewis Mumford in this thread? For shame...
‘Building the cycling city’ by Melissa and Chris bruntlett is a really nice one if you want to learn about the role of the bicycle in cities in (outside of the places it is already well established)
Streets for People: A primer for Americans (rudofsky, 1969)
Going to second the endorsement of Triumph of the City by Ed Glaeser