Publications

Two Authors from U-M make the Top 10 Best Planning Books for 2008

Chris Leinberger's Option of Urbanism and Sustainable Urbanism by Douglas Farr, B.S.'80 were selected by Planetizen for its seventh annual list of the ten best books in the planning field. Top ten titles cover some of the most timely issues in planning—from sustainability planning to the changing demographics that shape cities and countries. The list gives readers an overview of the best ideas and writing in the field. The 2008 list is based on a number of criteria, including editorial reviews, sales rankings, popularity, Planetizen reader nominations, number of references, recommendations from experts and the book's potential impact on the urban planning, development and design professions.

Chris Leinberger is a land use strategist, developer and author helping to make progressive development profitable. He is a Professor of Practice and the Director of the Graduate Real Estate Program at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. He is also a Visiting Fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on research and practices that help transform traditional and suburban downtowns and other places that provide walkable urbanism.

Douglas Farr is an architect, urban designer, and the founding principal and president of Farr Associates [link to website?]. He has served as cochair of the Environmental Task Force of the Congress for the New Urbanism, chair of the AIA Chicago Committee on the Environment, and chair of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) Core Committee.

Planetizen is a public-interest information exchange provided by Urban Insight for the urban planning, design, and development community.

The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream

The new American Dream presented in this quick and easy read is one similar to the American Dream of the past: a slower-paced and neighborhood-centric lifestyle. Leinberger call this walkable urbanism, and he uses history and economic analysis to show how market preference is shifting back towards this development pattern and away from the drivable suburbanism that monopolized the last 60 years.
Island Press, 224 pages, www.islandpress.org

Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature

A broadly-focused and solutions-based look at environmentally sustainable urban design. This heavily illustrated guide calls on planners, architects and designers to reframe their work to do the double-duty of creating great places while reducing the human impact on the environment. Case studies and essays written by Farr and others give a real-world context to the ideas and methods espoused in this ambitious argument on behalf of a new type urban design and development that is interrelated with nature.
Wiley, 256 pages, www.wiley.com