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Overview
The ailing American city needs help. Worsening automobile traffic, urban decay, pollution, staggering debt, crime, sprawl, and the lack of a coherent city plan are just some of the problems that to many citizens now seem overwhelming. A model for a workable, livable urban metropolis is urgently needed ... and finally available. In the pages of this remarkable, beautifully illustrated book, renowned landscape architect John Ormsbee Simonds presents a positive and compelling approach to the creative evolution of the American city. Viewing it as an organic entity, he analyzes each individual component and provides a conceptual model that regroups and reconnects its scattered elements into an efficient, more self-sustaining, "garden-park" prototype. Emphasizing thriving activity centers, cohesive communities, and innovative means of interconnection within an open space framework, his model portends a vastly superior city for the 21st century. Some of the highlights of this brilliant urban guidebook include an illuminating analysis of how cities typically aggregate and the ways by which growth can be contained and disposed to form more synergistic relationships; techniques for creating a parklike environs of "greenways" and "blueways" - that allow a city to "breathe," and greatly improve the quality of life; a checklist of considerations in the planning and design of the future city dwelling, neighborhood, urban centers, and metropolitan region; effective methods for integrating mass transportation into a smoothly functioning system that bypasses pedestrian centers; a method of superimposing an idealized city diagram on the existing city base map to analyze and conceptualize a more workable future model; and a generous visual array of innovative solutions by America's top urban designers. Nearly 100 years ago, an English landscape designer and planner, Sir Ebenezer Howard, proposed a revolutionary theory of planned integration of cities with their supporting regionsA planning roadmap for the 21st-Century American city. Topics include the Urban Dwelling--living space, space expansion, outdoors-in, attached dwellings, clustering, and stacking; the Neighborhood--togetheness, conformation, places, ways, character, neighborhood ties, planned economics, and communities; and the Urban Metropolis. Index. 80 illustrations, 20 in full color.
Editorials
Planning Magazine
Incorporates many of the best solutions to urban problems, along with some provocative ideas.
Booknews
An eminent landscape architect analyzes how cities typically aggregate and the ways growth can be contained and the quality of life improved via thoughtful transportation planning and "greenways" and "blueways." He provides a checklist of considerations in the planning and design of the future city dwelling, neighborhood, urban center, and metropolitan region and outlines a method for superimposing an idealized city diagram on an existing city base map for better conceptualization. Abundantly illustrated with drawings and diagrams, and photos of urban projects. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Book Details
Published
December 1, 1993
Publisher
McGraw-Hill Professional
Pages
272
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780070576209