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Tag Archives: cities
Romance of the Rails
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 Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews
Tagged cities, Politics-CivicInterest, trains, transportation, trolleys!
5 Comments
Walkable City Rules
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 Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews
Tagged bicycles, cities, Politics-CivicInterest, urbanism
4 Comments
Happy City
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 Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews
Tagged cities, civic awareness, politics, Politics-CivicInterest, urbanism
2 Comments
Short rounds: of cybercities and medicinal ectasy
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
Fares Please!
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
Amsterdam
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 history, Reviews
Tagged art, bicycles, cities, history, Netherlands, philosophy, social history
6 Comments
A Burglar’s Guide to the City
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
Infrastructure: A Field Guide
Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape© 1999, 2014 Brian Hayes544 pages Here at last is a book for those of us who constantly gaze out the car window at the fixtures on utility poles, or drums mounted in … Continue reading
On Bikes
On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life© 2011 ed. Amy Walker384 pages On Bicycles collects fifty cycling pieces, collecting in categories on why biking is awesome, how gear can make it better, how biking can … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged bicycles, cities, civic activism, participation, Portland, sustainability
2 Comments
The Big Necessity
The Big Necessity: the Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters© 2008, 2014 Rose George238 pages In its initial publication, The Big Necessity may have been an eye-opening look into how many human beings still suffer for want … Continue reading