Gutfreund, Owen D. Twentieth-Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Gutfreund takes a "follow the money" approach to show how government policies — from as early as the 1890s — subsidized the spread of cities and fueled a chronic nationwide dependence on cars and road-building, with little regard for expense, efficiency, ecological damage, or social equity. Click here for the New York Press review.

Nadel, Barbara A., ed. Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Building Security: Handbook for Architectural Planning and Design is the definitive 21st century reference on security design, technology, building operations, and disaster planning. Award-winning architect and author Barbara A. Nadel, FAIA, provides security design solutions for creating safe commercial, institutional, industrial, and residential buildings in the post-September 11, 2001, environment. Review appears in August/September 2004 issue of Planning magazine.

Nozzi, Dom. Road to Ruin: An Introduction to Sprawl and How to Cure It. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.

Nozzi delivers an easy-to-follow introduction to sprawl's causes and offers common-sense solutions available to communities. The time is ripe for resurrecting the tradition of designing that makes people, not cars, happy. The key is returning to modest, human-scaled streets, parking, land use, and development regulations. Design principles encouraging walking, bicycling, and mass transit in conjunction with automobile travel are essential to creating livable cities once again.

Whitehand, J.W.R., and C.M.H. Carr. Twentieth-Century Suburbs: A Morphological Approach. London: Routledge, 2001.

This volume concerned with the history, geography, architecture and planning of the ordinary suburban areas in which most British people live. It discusses the origins of suburbs; the ways in which they have been represented; the scale and causes of their growth; their form and architectural style; the landowners, builders and architects responsible for their creation; the changes they have undergone both physically and socially; and their impact on urban form and the implications for urban landscape management. While British in orientation, the ideas presented are universal.

Wiewel, Wim, and Joseph J. Persky, eds. Suburban Sprawl: Private Decisions and Public Policy. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002.

This book combines historical, political, economic, geographic, and urban planning analysis to provide the most comprehensive overview of how and why urban sprawl occurs. It shows that all previous attempts to pin the blame on one or two causes — highway building or consumer preferences — totally miss the complex and interwoven character of public policy and private interests in creating today's urban form. The book includes detailed analyses of expenditures that show how federal housing subsidies have contributed significantly to sprawl in the post-World War II period, and a thorough overview of policies that can be used to reduce sprawl or its negative consequences.

White, Sammis B., Richard D. Bingham, and Edward W. Hill. Financing Economic Development in the 21st Century. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2003.

With contributions by planning and development professionals and scholars, the book offers a balanced and comprehensive survey of the major mechanisms for financing economic development today. It explores the details of all the standard developmental tools, such as Tax Incremental Finance districts, angel and venture capital, and tax abatements, as well as newer tools that have proven effective, including micro-enterprise lending, stadium financing, brownfields financing, and revolving loan funds. Tools for rural development finance are also covered, and in addition to describing the various programs and providing examples of how they work, the book also evaluates their relative effectiveness against alternative techniques. Planners Library review appears in August/September 2004 issue of Planning.

Moskowitz, Harvey S., and Carl G. Lindbloom. The Latest Illustrated Book of Development Definitions: New Expanded Edition. New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, 2004.

The thoroughly revised and expanded edition standardizes in one handy reference all the key terms used in zoning, subdivision, site plan, and environmental ordinances. In all, it contains 1,957 definitions and 103 illustrations that can be incorporated in local ordinances with little or no change. The commentaries and annotations provide legal background and explain how the definitions can be adapted for use by local jurisdictions. Click here for a review in the June 2004 issue of Planning magazine.

Wheeler, Stephen M., and Timothy Beatley, eds. The Sustainable Urban Development Reader. London: Routledge, 2004.

Brings together classic readings from a wide variety of sources to investigate how our cities and towns can become more sustainable. Thirty-eight selections span issues such as land use planning, urban design, transportation, ecological restoration, economic development, resource use, and equity planning. Section introductions outline the major themes, while introductions to the individual writings explain their interest and significance to wider audiences. Additional sections present 24 case studies of real-world sustainable urban planning examples, sustainability planning exercises, and further reading.

Cavin, Andrew I., ed. Urban Planning. New York: H. W. Wilson, 2003.

Review From: Reference Reviews, April 2004:

Students studying the environment will be interested in this exploration of urban planning. The editor's introduction suggests that urban sprawl is very much a topic for debate. The first article discusses "What You Don't Know About Sprawl." Other sections cover "Trends in Development," "Transportation Infrastructure," "Housing" and "Revitalizing the Urban Environment." The Appendices offer statistics on the percentage of persons who live in urban areas by state, changes in U.S. population during the past 10 years, and the change in urban congestion. The bibliography provides two pages of books, two pages of Web sites and a seven-page list of annotated periodical articles.

Rabinowitz, Alan. Urban Economics and Land Use in America: The Transformation of Cities in the Twentieth Century. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2004.

Incorporating the thinking of visionary city planners and land use economists, the author shows how their ideas frequently lost out to more short-sighted views that played a major role in shaping social change in America during the last century. He dissects the economic, social, and political attitudes of the times, and the economic realities and fictions that played themselves out in the misuse of America's open spaces that he believes has led to many of today's urban ills. The result is a lucid primer on the economics of land, its development and usage, and on how things actually get done in the real estate industry.

Rothman, Hal. Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Las Vegas glitters brightly in the vast Nevada desert, a haven for refugees from ordinary America. A hip, iconic, playground that exports nothing, it nonetheless earns billions from consumer services alone — gambling, hotels, gaming, and entertainment. It is, historian Hal K. Rothman argues, the quintessential city of the future. As other cities try to mirror its success and huge, respectable corporations like Coca-Cola invest in a piece of the pie, the very traits that have ostracized Las Vegas in the past — hedonism, money worship, and permissiveness — have today made it America's fastest growing urban center. From the gambling-driven, mob-run Sin City of the 1940s to the corporatization of the Strip as a respectable family entertainment center after the 1970s, Las Vegas has shown incredible economic resilience and adaptability.

Panel on Urban Population Dynamics. National Research Council. Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and its Implications in the Developing World. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003.

Drawing from a wide variety of data sources, many of them previously inaccessible, Cities Transformed explores the implications of various urban contexts for marriage, fertility, health, schooling, and children's lives. It should be of interest to all involved in city-level research, policy, planning, and investment decisions.