Urban Development - Book Reviews

Saviors at City Hall?

Review By Milton Friesen 2

Urban leaders offer a model for tackling big global problems that nation-states are failing to address.

Winter 2014

Manifest Density

Review By Carol Coletta 1

Investment in "hyperdense" cities is, according to one writer, the key to solving many problems that afflict US society.

Fall 2013

Demographic Revision

Review By Robert J. Sampson

The vast majority of neighborhoods in American cities do not "trade places." Instead, concentrated poverty and its opposite, concentrated affluence, are surprisingly persistent.

Winter 2013

Social Innovations

Climate Science as Culture War

Review By Andrew J. Hoffman 40

The public debate around climate change is no longer about science—it’s about values, culture, and ideology.

Misapplying Theory

Review By Xavier de Souza Briggs

In his latest book, David Sloan Wilson argues that evolutionary theory should be used to illuminate and tackle urban problems.

Spring 2012

Scaling Play

Review By Paul Connolly

KaBOOM! How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play by Darell Hammond

Fall 2011

Climate Speculations

Review By James L. Sweeney

CLIMATOPOLIS: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future by Matthew E. Kahn

Winter 2011

An Environmental Provocateur

Review By Denis Hayes 2

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand

Winter 2010

Review: Random Family

Review By Anitra Lynn Waller

Waller offers an intimate exposé of crime and drugs in the inner city.

Review: Civic Revolutionaries

Review By Dawn Ibis

Cross-sector collaboration is the key to community revitalization.