Gordon, Tracy M. Planned Developments in California: Private Communities and Public Life. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2004.

This report provides a comprehensive portrait of California's common interest developments (CIDs), which include planned developments, condominiums, and cooperatives. It focuses on planned developments, which now make up more than 40 percent of new single-family home sales and most resemble local governments in their scope of activities.

Agyeman, Julian. Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. New York: New York University Press, 2005.

The author argues that environmental justice and the sustainable communities movement are compatible in practical ways. Yet sustainability, which focuses on meeting our needs today while not compromising the ability of our successors to meet their needs, has not always partnered with the challenges of environmental justice.

Durst, Mose. Oakland, California: Towards a Sustainable City. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2006.

This book identifies some of the best projects, practices, and people who are contributing to the present and future sustainability of Oakland. Although the focus of the book might seem local — Oakland, California — the projects and practices are ones that can be replicable in any city. It discusses how the government, private, and nonprofit sectors can work together to put forward the sustainability agenda.

Earth Pledge. Green Roofs: Ecological Design and Construction. Atglen, Penn.: Stiffer Publishing, 2005.

This book details the ecological benefits, technical requirements, architectural history, and design possibilities of vegetated rooftops. It will inform and inspire communities, designers, building owners, and local leaders by showcasing the environmental and aesthetic potential of green roofs around the world.

Ismay, J. Randall. Firewise Communities: Where We Live, How We Live. Washington, D.C.: National Wildland/Urban Interface Fire Program, 2003.

This book illustrates Firewise homes that demonstrate aesthetically pleasing landscape designs that function as barriers against wildfire. Explanatory text is provided to describe designs and plant materials.

Jackson, Philip L., and Robert Kuhlken. A Rediscovered Frontier: Land Use and Resource Issues in the New West. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.

Describes the changing land use issues taking place in the rapidly growing western United States, paying special attention to the previously unexplored area of private lands planning and local growth management. The book begins by exploring the term "New West," and then describes prototypical land use patterns found throughout the West. A Rediscovered Frontier addresses the social, economic, political, and above all, geographical realities of land use in the West today.

Office of Economic Adjustment. Practical Guide to Compatible Civilian Development near Military Installations. Arlington, Va.: The Office, 2005.

Transit-Oriented Development in the United States: Experiences, Challenges, and Prospects. Washington, D.C.: Transportation Research Board, 2004.

Examines the state of the practice and the benefits of transit-oriented development and joint development throughout the United States.

Grant, Jill. Planning the Good Community: New Urbanism in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 2006.

With examples drawn principally from North America, Europe and Japan, Planning the Good Community explores new urban approaches in a wide range of settings. It compares the movement for urban renaissance in Europe with the new urbanism of the United States and Canada, and asks whether the concerns that drive today's planning theory — issues like power, democracy, spatial patterns and globalization — receive adequate attention in new urban approaches. The issue of aesthetics is also raised, as the author questions whether communities must be more than just attractive in order to be good.

Population, Land Use, and Environment. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2005.

Offers recommendations for future research to improve understanding of how changes in human populations affect the natural environment by means of changes in land use, such as deforestation, urban development, and development of coastal zones.

Sanyal, Bishwapriya, ed. Comparative Planning Cultures. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Are there significant variations in the ways planners in different nations have influenced urban, regional, and national development? Do such variations arise from differences in planning cultures, meaning the collective ethos and dominant attitude of planners in different nations towards the appropriate roles of the state, market forces, and civil society? How are such professional cultures formed? Are they indigenous and immutable, or do they evolve with social, political, and economic changes both within and outside the national territories? Specifically, what has been the impact of the intensification of global interconnectedness in trade, capital flows, labor migration, and technological connectivity on national planning cultures? Comparative Planning Cultures addresses these questions, drawing on the planning experience in 10 nations and at different territorial levels. The result is an understanding of planning culture that is complex and dynamic — in contrast to traditional notions of culture that evoke a sense of immutability and inheritance of unchanging social attributes of planners.

Katz, Bruce, and Robert Puentes, eds. Taking the High Road: A Metropolitan Agenda for Transportation Reform. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005.

Examines the most pressing transportation challenges facing American cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. The authors focus on the central issues in the ongoing debate and deliberations about the nation's transportation policy. They go beyond the federal debate, however, to lay out an agenda for reform that responds directly to those responsible for putting these policies into practice — leaders at the state, metropolitan, and local levels.

Building the Organizations that Build Communities: Strengthening the Capacity of Faith- and Community-Based Development Organizations. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2004.

Gathers papers that address the key issues in expanding the capacity of Faith-Based and Community Organizations. The collection is not intended to be exhaustive, rather it documents current thinking on the issue of capacity and a clearer view of the research gaps facing faith-based and community development organizations. The 17 papers are divided into four sections, Defining the Issues, Current Research on Building the Capacity of Community Development Organizations, Training and Capacity, and The Role of Performance Measures in Expanding Capacity.

Tonkiss, Fran. Space, the City and Social Theory. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2005.

Rather than viewing the urban simply as a backdrop for more general social processes, the discussion looks at how social and spatial relations shape different versions of the city: as a place of social interaction and of solitude; as a site of difference and segregation; as a space of politics and power; as a landscape of economic and cultural distinction; as a realm of everyday experience and freedom.