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 about creating successful, livable cities, with examples
from across America and around the world. The book conveys what leading
thinkers say about such topics 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 lively book about the possibility of enjoying urban and suburban life.
Quotes:
"How do we rediscover the art of building good cities to accommodate
our growing population over the next century, and in the process turn
the rough draft of the suburban idea into a sustainable — and more
endearing — model? This is the stated mission of Toward the Livable City,
a surprisingly nonpolemical collection of essays on urban planning . .
. Editor Emilie Buchwald asked [contributors] for “their definitions of
livable cities and for strategies and tactics they believe might be
useful in achieving one.' They deliver. (para) The first triumph of the
book is that it intelligently discusses planning with barely a mention
of yawners like zoning, tax policy, or unsewered subdivisions. It
doesn't consciously hide from wonky details. It just knows how to
describe a city without the insufferable language of official city
builders. (para) . . . the book is a viable blueprint for a new century
of city building.... Toward the Livable City largely avoids . . .
faults by focusing on not just what makes suburbs unbearable but also
on what makes cities so much more inviting.... The writers in this book
detail a number of innovative ways to make cities more appealing to
everyone, ideas that can be used not only to improve our Chicagos,
Detroits, and Baltimores but also those suburban areas that have the
potential to become more like the cities they surround.... what's most
impressive here is an acknowledgement that people form strong
attachments to the places where they live, even when those places are
bad for them, and a recognition that bullying people into the new
urbanism envisioned by these authors won't work. (para) “Changing the
face of a city is a matter of blueprints, of dollars, of cubic feet of
concrete, of cranes and bulldozers.' McKibben writes. “Changing the
heart of a city is more difficult, and more important — there's no
simple way to bulldoze attitudes, to pour old feeling into plywood
forms and let them harden into better shapes.' . . . The writers here
are true urban enthusiasts, convinced that by choice or necessity
Americans will someday embrace cities again.” —One Earth, Anthony Jaffe
"In
this vigorous collection of essays about the prospects for livable
cities, editor Emilie Buchwald has put together a diverse crosscut of
authors who present case studies, offer their theories, and discuss
ways in which these environments can be improved. (para) One of the
best things about this paperback is the high regard Buchwald has for
the ideal of civility as one of the qualities that improves urban
living. Check out Jane Holtz Kay's appreciation of 'the sharing of
space with absentminded courtesy - the chance encounters between
strangers and neighbors. 'Lynn Morgenroth left Boston for suburbia
because of the increasing incivility in Boston. But another resident of
Cambridge, Sara St. Antoine, makes the place seem eminently livable as
she moves around the neighborhood. (para) Just try to imagine what
cities would be like without so many automobiles. (para) This
collection of essays is a must-read for all those interested in
civility and cities” - Spirituality & Health, Frederic and Mary Ann
Brussat
“...The 17 individual essays and voices collected in
Toward the Livable City are an illuminating and accessible resource to
the policy wonk, as well as the concerned citizen. The book's editor,
Emilie Buchwald, has gotten out of the way of her contributors,
resisting all impulses to artificially theme or unify the diverse
collection. While most books on city making and city life are of the
evangelical/revelatory/call-to-arms variety, Buchwald's provocative
menagerie of urban voices allows readers to sort it all out for
themselves. Like a good town-hall meeting, every voice is heard, from
the loud and dogmatic to the quietly articulate. (para) [Buchwald's]
highly accessible collection succeeds in the diversity of approaches to
the subject. (para) ...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.” —Architecture Minnesota,
Phillip Glenn Koski
“All in all, this is a stimulating an
intelligent collection, one that ranges from big policy questions to
intensely personal reflections” —The New Urban News
"Contributions
celebrate pedestrian scale, savred places, regionalism, infrastructure,
and the reclamation of urban space for food production.... Lovely
evocations of place . . . Highly recommended” —Choice: Current Reviews
for Academic Libraries
“This is an engrossing book worth the time
of anyone who cares about their environment” -Netsurfer Books (online:
www.netsurf.com/nsb/sub/v06/nsb.06.05.html)
“Instead of lecturing
us, these writers gently nudge us from car-dependent sprawl toward
compact neighborhoods where kids can play kickball and grown-ups can
stroll to the store” -Jodi Peterson, High Country News
"Just when
I think I'd better pack up my utopia and hit the interstate, along
comes Emilie Buchwald's Toward the Livable City … it kicks off with a
couple of tributes to gourmet pizza, yoga classes, and, oh, the
cacophonous congeniality of the city. Thankfully, the book sobers up …
By the end, I'm learning from the experts what it takes to truly love
and change a city. (para) These writers tell it like it is. (para)
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” —Sojourners, April 2004
“Toward the Livable City
doesn't pretend that bike lanes and community gardens will make it all
better, but it does contend that structural change —from affordable
housing to zoning laws —goes a long way toward social change. Wherever
my chickens and I eventually decide to roost, here is a book to keep
close at hand” -Bethany Spicher, Sojourners Magazine
"Toward
the Livable City delivers what its title implies: it focuses not on
what has made cities livable in the past, but rather, on what will make
them livable in the future. Editor and publisher emeritus Emilie
Buchwald's selection of writers is purposefully broad … a decision that
broadens her audience from the experienced urban policy practitioner to
include the concerned, or merely interested, citizen. (para) A variety
of viewpoints and writing styles makes for both a refreshingly eclectic
and intermittently jarring reading experience; from the close of one
essay to the opening of the next, the writing can move from poetic
lyricism to policy-laden manifesto. (para) … Buchwald's book
communicates hope, not despair. (para) Buchwald's choice of
contributors skews conspicuously to the Left--there are no free market
manifestos here--but the cogency of the essays around a shared vision
of the livable city works to create energy and a sense of forward
movement” —The Common Review, Heather Dewar
"Ah, The City. A
vibrant concoction of art and culture, walkways and subways, parks and
people - sights, smells, and sounds that are familiar and foreign all
at once. But what is it that makes a city truly livable? That's the
questions explored in local Milkweed Editions' Toward the Livable City,
a collection of thoughtful - and thought-provoking - essays. Through
the eyes of these authors we view urban life: what we love, what we
hate, what chases us to the suburbs, what brings us back. (para)
Through the authors' pithy, poignant contemplation, we see and
celebrate the livable city - and maybe even gain the tools to push our
own cities in that direction. The events includes readings, an art
exhibit, and information from local organizations on sustainable
cities” —City Pages, Leyla Kokmen
"Even a detail as small as a
designer manhole cover can start to make the difference between a city
that drives its residents out and one that invites them to stay. Such
features big and small - from traffic-calming devices to putting
pedestrians on a par with cars and reinventing waterfronts - are the
focus of“Romancing the City,”a discussion and publication celebration
of Toward the Livable City (Milkweed, $18/95) Tuesday night at Open
Book in Minneapolis. (para) The evening will also feature art -
paintings, manhole covers and mobiles - and displays from organizations
(list of orgs, date and time of event)” —Star Tribune, Sarah T. Williams
"Livable
City does offer some good ideas---such as gardening abandoned city
lots---that nonetheless wear the reader down with their preachiness.
But the book also holds many surprises, revealing the complex,
little-noticed forces shaping our landscape” —City Paper, Joab Jackson
"Contributors
to Milkweed Press's Toward the Livable City would rather talk about
heartening aspects of the city than issues like urban sprawl or
pollution. Even more so, these forward thinkers contemplate ways to
maintain the characteristics they love” —Skyway News, Anna Pratt
