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Throughout his fifty-year career as a landscape architect, A. E. Bye (1919-2001) approached his work with the sensibility of an artist and the precision of a scientist. He designed landscapes to intensify their intrinsic qualities, using abstract forms that defined relationships among natural elements to explore the dynamic processes underlying each site. He has been described as a landscape architect "whose public and private garden designs strove for a naturalism so artful [it seemed] he knew...

Do urban growth boundaries actually manage growth? How can the chaotic common law of vested rights be tamed? How can we make the development review process fair? Should housing policies be taken out of the hands of local boards? Planning's leading thinkers tackled these questions and others in a December 2004 conference sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the Washington University School of Law and the American Planning Association.This book is the record of their spirited d...

The definitive, one-stop reference to the history of landscape architecture-now expanded and revised This revised edition of Landscapes in History features for the first time new information-rarely available elsewhere in the literature-on landscape architecture in India, China, Southeast Asia, and Japan. It also expands the discussion of the modern period, including current North American planning and design practices. This unique, highly regarded book traces the development of landscape archi...

Large, modern cities have effectively declared their independence from nature. But while they take up only three percent of the world's land surface, their ecological footprints actually cover the entire globe. Humanity is building an urban future, yet urban resource use is threatening the future of humanity and the natural world. To meet the aspirations of city people in both developing and developed countries, bold new initiatives are needed. Modern cities are an astonishing human achievement....

The world's population is rapidly urbanizing but the affluence and development often associated with cities are far from equitably or sustainably distributed. Where it was once taken for granted that responsibility for urban development lay with the state, increasingly the emphasis has shifted to market-driven and public-private sector initiatives, which can marginalize the intended beneficiaries - the urban poor - from decision making and implementation. This text outlines the essential conditi...

American and Japanese landscape architects Peter Walker William Johnson Partners and OHTORI Consultants joined to build a plaza in the midst of a huge development project in Saitama, Japan. When we see Saitama Plaza from a distance, what we see is, improbably, a forest floating above the ground, a serene square of dark branches and green leaves against a steel, glass, and concrete tangle of outsized contemporary buildings. When we look more closely, we see a bosque of 220 zelkova trees plant...

After more than a century of heroic urban visions, urban dwellers today live in suburban subdivisions, gated communities, edge cities, apartment towers, and slums. The contemporary cities we know are more often the embodiment of unexpected outcomes and unintended consequences rather than visionary planning. As an alternative approach for rethinking and remaking today's cities and regions, this book explores the intersections of critical inquiry and immediate, substantive actions. The contributi...

From the bestselling author of The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places comes this inspiring and beautifully written meditation on the wisdom inherited from our ancestors.For all we have gained in the modern world, simple peace of mind is hard to find. In a time that is increasingly fraught with complexity and conflict, we are told that our wellbeing relies on remaining as present as possible. But what if the key to being present lies in the past? In Wisdom of the Ancients, Neil Oliver takes...

This is the first book to directly address the physics of urban sustainability and how urban sustainability may be modeled and optimized. Starting with an introduction to the importance and key aspects of the topic, it moves on to a detailed consideration of the urban climate and pedestrian comfort. Comprehensive techniques for the modeling and optimisation of urban metabolism are then described, together with means for defining sustainability as the fitness function to be optimized. It ends wit...

Although the last decade has seen steady progress towards wider acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, LGBTQ residential and commercial areas have come under increasing pressure from gentrification and redevelopment initiatives. As a result many of these neighborhoods are losing their special character as safe havens for sexual and gender minorities. Urban planners and municipal officials have sometimes ignored the transformation of these neighborhood...

In recent years, China has issued several basin-scale plans to deal with pressing resources, environmental, and social problems caused by regional urbanisation. These plans help push ahead flood control and disaster reduction, the allocation, utilisation, and conservation of water resources, water ecological environment protection, and integrated basin management. The development of Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze Economic Belt, the Yellow River Basin, Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region, Guangdong–Ho...

In the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum between the binary extremes of black and white it’s not gray, as you might expect, but green. And within green’s bandwidth there are more tonal variations than any other colour can make. Maybe this is why - envy, naivete, and money aside - green is generally synonymous with good. Green is paradise for Islam, luck for the Irish, and a healthy planet for environmentalists. Whereas the industrial past was grey, the future is green. LA+ Green explores th...

Strategic Spatial Projects presents four years of case study research and theoretical discussions on strategic spatial projects in Europe and North America. It takes the position that planning is not well equipped to take on its current challenges if it is considered as only a regulatory and administrative activity. There is an urgent need to develop a mode of planning that aims to innovate in spatial as well as social terms. This timely, important book is for spatial planning, urban design and...