Rising income inequality and concentrated poverty threaten the social sustainability of North American cities. Suburban growth endangers sensitive ecosystems, water supplies, and food security. Existing urban infrastructure is crumbling while governments struggle to pay for new and expanded services. Can our inherited urban governance institutions and policies effectively respond to these problems? In Shaping the Metropolis Zack Taylor compares the historical development of American and Canadian urban governance, both at the national level and through specific metropolitan case studies. Examining Minneapolis–St Paul and Portland, Oregon, in the United States, and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada, Taylor shows how differences in the structure of governing institutions in American states and Canadian provinces cumulatively produced different forms of urban governance. Arguing that since the nineteenth century American state governments have responded less effectively to rapid urban growth than Canadian provinces, he shows that the concentration of authority in Canadian provincial governments enabled the rapid adoption of coherent urban policies after the Second World War, while dispersed authority in American state governments fostered indecision and catered to parochial interests. Most contemporary policy problems and their solutions are to be found in cities. Shaping the Metropolis shows that urban governance encompasses far more than local government, and that states and provinces have always played a central role in responding to urban policy challenges and will continue to do so in the future.

A proven approach for addressing explosive metropolitan growth in an integrated and holistic manner “The book provides a basis for the contemplation of the old network paradigm of the megalopolis into the informational meshwork of the mega- or metacity of the future. The handbook’s review of the networked past is invaluable, while its projection of these networks into future plans raises very many important questions for planners, urban designers, architects, and concerned citizens alike.” –From the Foreword by Professor Grahame Shane, Columbia University For the first time, half the global population is living in urban areas—and that number is growing exponentially. Written by noted urban planner Pedro Ortiz, who served as director of the groundbreaking Madrid Metropolitan-Regional Plan, The Art of Shaping the Metropolis presents an innovative, agile solution for managing urban growth that enhances economic activity, environmental stability, and quality of life. Based on the findings from Madrid and other cities, this timely guide offers a methodical system for addressing the crucial issues facing governments, professionals, the private and public sectors, developers, stakeholders, and inhabitants of twenty-first-century metropolises. The book details new rubrics to identify the process of growth and its evolution, new tools to monitor and gauge them, and new methods to synthesize them into a professional praxis that will be sustainable for the long term. Ortiz demonstrates how metropolises can be organized for a future that preserves the historic nucleus of the city and the environment, while providing for the necessary sustainable expansion of transportation, housing, and social and productive facilities. Coverage includes: The dialogues of the metropolis The challenge The inheritance Balanced urban development—fabric and form The chess on a tripod (CiTi) method to build the model Madrid as testing ground Practical considerations in implementing a metropolitan plan Translating the model elsewhere

Repairing the American Metropolis is based on Douglas Kelbaugh’s Common Place: Toward Neighborhood and Regional Design, first published in 1997. It is more timely and significant than ever, with new text, charts, and images on architecture, sprawl, and New Urbanism, a movement that he helped pioneer. Theory and policies have been revised, refined, updated, and developed as compelling ways to plan and design the built environment. This is an indispensable book for architects, urban designers and planners, landscape architects, architecture and urban planning students and scholars, government officials, developers, environmentalists, and citizens interested in understanding and shaping the American metropolis.

The Connected City explores how thinking about networks helps make sense of modern cities: what they are, how they work, and where they are headed. Cities and urban life can be examined as networks, and these urban networks can be examined at many different levels. The book focuses on three levels of urban networks: micro, meso, and macro. These levels build upon one another, and require distinctive analytical approaches that make it possible to consider different types of questions. At one extreme, micro-urban networks focus on the networks that exist within cities, like the social relationships among neighbors that generate a sense of community and belonging. At the opposite extreme, macro-urban networks focus on networks between cities, like the web of nonstop airline flights that make face-to-face business meetings possible. This book contains three major sections organized by the level of analysis and scale of network. Throughout these sections, when a new methodological concept is introduced, a separate ‘method note’ provides a brief and accessible introduction to the practical issues of using networks in research. What makes this book unique is that it synthesizes the insights and tools of the multiple scales of urban networks, and integrates the theory and method of network analysis.

Sir Terry Farrell takes us on a journey around London, beyond the contribution of individual buildings, to the city - creating a larger, more exciting frame in which to view the city.

The American metropolis has been transformed over the past quarter century. Cities have turned inside out, with rapidly growing suburbs evolving into edge cities and technoburbs. But not all suburbs are alike. In Shaping Suburbia, Paul Lewis argues that a fundamental political logic underlies the patterns of suburban growth and argues that the key to understanding suburbia is to understand the local governments that control it - their number, functions, and power. Using innovative models and data analyses, Lewis shows that the relative political fragmentation of a metropolitan area plays a key part in shaping its suburbs.

With style and humor, the author writes of special places in everyday Seattle. The author takes us to popular, high-profile landmarks like Pike Place Market as well as tucked-away gems -- cozy cottages, trendy pubs, gracious apartment buildings, and vibrant urban villages -- that flavor and enliven the city. The author shares his eye for