- Hardcover: 296 pages
- Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional (1 April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 007134523X
- ISBN-13: 978-0071345231
- Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 19.4 x 2.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,527,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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The suburban landscape of the United States – the all-too-familiar array of fast-food franchise, big-box retail stores, parking lots, and clogged arterials – the subject of Hall and Porterfield's book. … Guided by the principles of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), the authors use excerpts from that organization's charter to illuminate their advocacy of more connected development patterns. The book’s scope extends beyond the commercial strip to include the major building blocks of towns and suburbs suck as apartment complexes, schools, parks, and office campuses. ...
One ideal audience for this book might be suburban planning commissioners, who need guidance from designers in order to understand the differences between conventional suburban development pods and walkable human-scale neighborhoods. The many black and white photographs of completed projects are helpful in this regard. ... (Journal of the American Planning Association )
by William A. Green, ASLA [Community by Design] was written for professionals, politicians, and citizens "taking an active role...and for those who are not yet part of the process but who want to know what it's about." Part 1, "Parts of the Puzzle," provides the reader with background on a variety of important topics and tools. In Chapter 1, "What is Community Design, Anyway?" the authors introduce basic definitions of neighborhood and community, present the building blocks of community design, and offer a description of spatial components and some of the community designer's tools. In "Putting It All Together" [Part 2], each chapter contains information focused on community design issues. With chapter titles including "Where Would You Rather Live?" and variants "...Shop?",...Work?",...Relax?", the authors present material that is well organized, clear, and accessible. In each chapter they describe pertinent issues, present patterns of development found in conventional suburban developments (those built after World War II), and offer alternatives from traditional neighborhood developments or those developments that are often found in older communities. Each chapter emphasizes some of the choices we have when designing communities as places for living, shopping, working, and relaxing. This comparative format works effectively. For illustration, the authors provide black-and-white photos, descriptive plans, and project profiles. ...Community by Design...provide[s] valuable information that...can provide planners, designers, and citizens with information for making more educated community design decisions. (Landscape Architecture )
Product Description
More than 50% of Americans live in suburban and exurban communities, and populations are increasing as more people seek green spaces, better access to education, retirement living, and homeownership. Yet these communities, with smaller budgets and no long-term growth planning, are unprepared for the problems--traffic congestion, poor air quality, and strip malls, to name a few--that are now plaguing them. Community by Design, authored by two specialists in suburban and exurban design and development, shows how to apply good planning practices to these smaller communities. (20030701)
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"Community design is the art of making sustainable living places that both thrive and adapt to people's needs for shelter, livelihood, commerce, recreation, and social order." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
"Community design is the art of making sustainable living places that both thrive and adapt to people's needs for shelter, livelihood, commerce, recreation, and social order." Read the first page
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7 reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
A Not-So-Practical Guide to New Urbanism
25 Aug 2005
Format:Hardcover
The suburban landscape of the United States is the subject of this book, advertised as "the first practical guide to creating communities that truly are communities-not merely enclaves near off-ramps." Guided by the principles of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), the book uses excerpts from that organization's Charter to illuminate its advocacy of more connected development patterns. The book's scope extends beyond the commercial strip to include the major building blocks of towns and suburbs, such as apartment complexes, schools, parks and office campuses.
Hall and Porterfield includes passages of fist-thumping suburbia-bashing similar to James Howard Kunstler's Home From Nowhere (1998, Touchstone Books) or Jane Holtz Kay's Asphalt Nation (1997, Crown). They also include graphic material, much of it adapted their earlier book, A Concise Guide to Community Planning (1994, McGraw-Hill).
Readers knowledgeable about New Urbanism will find few surprises here, other than a few glaring factual errors, like a reference to "Tyson's Corners, Virginia, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States" (p. 7) and a claim that Edge Cities and urban villages are "two names for essentially the same thing" (p. 210). Good points crop up here and there, but recommendations are so limited in scope that it can be difficult to discern whether the sample site designs are intended to be good or bad examples, which limits the book's usefulness pedagogically. The lack of dimensions on most of the drawings also severely limits the book's utility as a practical reference. Hall and Porterfield contrast "conventional suburban development" and "Traditional Neighborhood Development" options for site plans, but the comparisons sometimes seem forced and nearly always ignore the larger regional issues so critical to the debate.
One ideal audience for this book might suburban planning commissioners, who need guidance from designers in order to understand the differences between conventional suburban development pods and walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods.
Hall and Porterfield includes passages of fist-thumping suburbia-bashing similar to James Howard Kunstler's Home From Nowhere (1998, Touchstone Books) or Jane Holtz Kay's Asphalt Nation (1997, Crown). They also include graphic material, much of it adapted their earlier book, A Concise Guide to Community Planning (1994, McGraw-Hill).
Readers knowledgeable about New Urbanism will find few surprises here, other than a few glaring factual errors, like a reference to "Tyson's Corners, Virginia, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States" (p. 7) and a claim that Edge Cities and urban villages are "two names for essentially the same thing" (p. 210). Good points crop up here and there, but recommendations are so limited in scope that it can be difficult to discern whether the sample site designs are intended to be good or bad examples, which limits the book's usefulness pedagogically. The lack of dimensions on most of the drawings also severely limits the book's utility as a practical reference. Hall and Porterfield contrast "conventional suburban development" and "Traditional Neighborhood Development" options for site plans, but the comparisons sometimes seem forced and nearly always ignore the larger regional issues so critical to the debate.
One ideal audience for this book might suburban planning commissioners, who need guidance from designers in order to understand the differences between conventional suburban development pods and walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
For Novices Only
27 Feb 2004
Format:Hardcover
Community by Design is an introduction to the basics of community design and New Urbanism. It's useful if that's what you're after, but not an interesting read if you're anything but a novice on the the topic. It reads like a texbook for a freshman-level course in urban design. Used for that purpose, I'm certain it would be more than successful. As a source of new, insightful commentary on the subject of New Urbanism it falls more than a little short.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Community By Design
24 Aug 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an excellent introduction to how the philosophy of New Urbanism can be applied to suburbs. It would be very helpful to people serving on Zoning & Planning Commissions or City Councils.
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