Tag Archives: cities

Romance of the Rails

Posted on March 21, 2019 by

Romance of the Rails: Why the Trains We Love Are Not the Transportation We Need© 2018 Randal O’Toole300 pages “These are the 1930s again, with all the charm and romance, all the gaiety! That was a carefree world, Danny, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Walkable City Rules

Posted on March 16, 2019 by

Walkaable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places © 2018 Jeff Speck312 pages In Walkable Cities, Jeff Speck argued for the virtues of a city optimized for pedestrian travel, and offered ten general guidelines  for making it happen — … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Happy City

Posted on February 3, 2019 by

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives through Urban Design© 2013 Charles Montgomery368 pages City air makes one free, but — happy? Throughout the 20th century, Americans fled the urban centers seeking Arcadian bliss. They didn’t find it, and despite an abundance … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Short rounds: of cybercities and medicinal ectasy

Posted on March 8, 2018 by

Recently I’ve read a couple of books that I wasn’t particularly impressed with, but  they weren’t stinkers enough to merit one of those rare-but-fun-to-write negative reviews.  They’re in that “I can manage a paragraph of mixed interest and disappointment” grey … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Fares Please!

Posted on January 17, 2018 by

Fares, Please! A Popular History of Trolleys, Horsecars, Streetcar,s, Buses, Elevateds, and Subways© 1941, 1960 John Anderson Miller204 pages With her high starch collar and her high-topped shoes,  and her hair piled high above her headShe went to find a … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Amsterdam

Posted on January 16, 2018 by

Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City© 2013 Russell Shorto369 pages In the early 14th century, a group of fisher-folk around the Amstel river came together with a dream: to build a place where people could smoke weed … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

A Burglar’s Guide to the City

Posted on September 18, 2017 by

A Burglar’s Guide to the City© 2016 Geoff Manaugh304 pages There’s really no resisting a title like that, is there?  Mind, it’s not accurate;  this isn’t a guide to how burglars read architecture, a catalog of vulnerabilities that homeowners and … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 11 Comments