Toward the Livable City
Commuters, suburbanites, city dwellers: Are you curious about making your life more livable and interested in knowing what that might mean?
Combining firsthand accounts of the attractions and distractions of city life, Toward the Livable City introduces a range of perspectives—including pieces from Bill McKibben, Jane Holtz Kay, James Howard Kunstler, and Tony Hiss—about creating successful, livable cities, with examples from across America and around the world. These leading thinkers weigh in on topics such as smart growth, traffic calming, pedestrian rights, regional planning, riverfront redevelopment, and architecture—as well as the pleasures of sauntering down tree-lined streets to restaurants, theaters, and shops.
Encapsulating the growing movement that brings together planners and architects, environmentalists and seekers of the “good life,” Toward the Livable City is a spirited book about the possibility of enjoying urban and suburban existence.
Like this book? Sign up for occasional updates
Praise and Prizes
“A surprisingly nonpolemical collection of essays on urban planning that includes work from a luminous panel of contributors . . . It intelligently discusses planning . . . without the insufferable language of the official city builders.”
“An illuminating and accessible resource to the policy wonk, as well as the concerned citizen . . . While the writers of Toward the Livable City share a common respect for and belief in the viability of the urban condition, like a true democracy, they each qualify what that means in highly varied and reliably divergent ways.”
“A collection of thoughtful—and thought-provoking—essays . . . Through the authors’ pithy, poignant contemplation, we see and celebrate the living city—and maybe even gain the tools to push our own cities in that direction.”
“Refreshingly eclectic . . . These essays champion the beauty, vitality, and viability of cities while assessing the government policies that shared them and asserting new regional and local policies for future growth.”
“Emilie Buchwald’s essayists build a livable city of their own with lively, diverse reflections that manage to mix feet-on-the-ground with a little pie-in-the-sky. . . . By the end, I’m learning from the experts what it takes to truly love and change a city.”
“A stimulating and intelligent collection, one that ranges from big policy questions to intensely personal reflections.”