Political Science - Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Development

A galvanizing story of how everyday people built a powerful anti-eviction movement in gentrified San Francisco. In the early 2010s, San Francisco experienced a tech boom that created both great wealth and great inequality. The city became known for runaway gentrification, a major housing...

What if scrapping one flawed policy could bring US cities closer to addressing debilitating housing shortages, stunted growth and innovation, persistent racial and economic segregation, and car-dependent development? It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary...

Whether motivated by visionary ideals or commercial gain or political ambition, many have tried to unite Minneapolis and St. Paul into one city, and all have failed. This book explains why. Why haven't Minneapolis and St. Paul merged into one city? In Becoming the...

From one of North America's most influential public space experts comes a powerful treatise celebrating Black people's audacious, complex, and universally embraced public joy expressions. How much safety, belonging and delight do you feel when you walk through a park? Hang out in a...

Black Wall Street 100: An American City Grapples with its Historical Racial Trauma, endorsed by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission and the 400 Years of African American History Commission, furthers the educational mission of both bodies. The book offers updates on developments...

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!" That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, seemed to encapsulate an entire era in this nation's urban history. Across that decade, a wave of...

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!" That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, seemed to encapsulate an entire era in this nation's urban history. Across that decade, a wave of...

Building the world of our dreams has never been more attainable than it is today. Our society is the wealthiest, most knowledgeable, and most technically advanced in history. Yet, why does so much of the modern world around us feel dispiriting? In this hopeful...

An eye-opening investigation into how our ever-expanding urban highways accelerated inequality and fractured communities--and a call for a more just, sustainable path forward "Megan Kimble manages to turn a book about transportation and infrastructure into a fascinating human drama."--Michael Harriot, New York Times bestselling...

City planning is a practice and a profession. It is also a set of goals and--sometimes utopian--aspirations. Formal thought about the shaping of cities as physical spaces and social environments calls on the same range of disciplines and approaches that we use for understanding...

Discover insider secrets of how America's transportation system is designed, funded, and built - and how to make it work for your community In Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town, renowned speaker and author of Strong Towns Charles L. Marohn...

A hard-hitting exploration of how state policy displaces and isolates Black communities and how collective resistance creates spaces for working-class people of color to identify the true cause of conflict as capitalism and white supremacy Marginalized communities often become understandably preoccupied with a city's...

A globe-trotting, eye-opening exploration of how cities can--and do--make us happier people Charles Montgomery's Happy City is revolutionizing the way we think about urban life. After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has...

Nestled against the Cascade Mountains, former lumber town Bend, Oregon, entices residents who long to live in a wonderland of sagebrush and forests. But like so many other communities across the West, Bend has too few homes for everyone clambering for access. In High...

A tale of 2 NYC affordable housing co-ops' struggle over privatization, public goods, and the future of American housing The American Dream of homeownership is becoming an American Delusion. As renters seek an escape from record-breaking rent hikes, first-time buyers find that skyrocketing interest...

Mayor Adler of Austin had no place to hide.- A serial bomber terrorizes the fastest-growing U.S. city.- A pandemic kills people and shuts down the economy.- Homeless encampments take over parks and civic debate.- A city is at war with itself over policing and...

"Why do big projects go wrong so often, and are there any lessons you can use when renovating your kitchen? Bent Flyvbjerg is the 'megaproject' expert and Dan Gardner brings the storytelling skills to How Big Things Get Done, with examples ranging from a...

"An exacting look at gentrification" (New York Times Book Review)--and the lives devastated in the process The term gentrification has become a buzzword to describe the changes in urban neighborhoods across the country, but we don't realize just how threatening it is. It means...

In every major city in the world there is a housing crisis. How did this happen and what can we do about it? Everyone needs and deserves housing. But today our homes are being transformed into commodities, making the inequalities of the city ever...

Across America, universities have become big businesses--and our cities their company towns. But there is a cost to those who live in their shadow. Urban universities play an outsized role in America's cities. They bring diverse ideas and people together and they generate new...