I’m a cofounder at the Urban Flourishing Project, an initiative to build new livable, walkable towns, with world-class schools and universities and as a mecca for innovative industries. The creative foundation is New Urbanism, the architectural movement that draws from the traditional urban development pattern that predated 20th-century suburbia in designing modern, walkable communities. Below are the books I’ve found most influential to my thinking.
Suburban Nation
In Suburban Nation, authors Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck brilliantly unpack how suburban misery came to be, with suburbanites spending so much of their life stuck in cars and traffic—shuttling kids to and from mediocre schools and activities, driving to suburban retail centers, and commuting to an office.
Strong Towns
In Strong Towns, author Charles Marohn, founder of the preeminent think tank on American city infrastructure, coined the term “Municipal Growth Ponzi Scheme” to capture the ever deepening insolvency of our city infrastructure. According to Strong Towns, this fiscal hole is so deep that even federal bailouts cannot maintain the installed base of city infrastructure, eventually requiring local officials to triage in deciding which parts of town to outright abandon. See Detroit. I found this quote from Marohn chilling: “Detroit is not some strange anomaly. It’s just early. It’s just a couple decades ahead of everyplace else.”
Smart Growth Manual
In Smart Growth Manual, Duany and Speck, give a step by step guide to how to build new livable, walkable communities. They draw from the long-forgotten wisdom of historical town builders and their ample experience from designing over 45 new urbanist towns around the country.