Toward the Livable City is intended for commuters, suburbanites, and city dwellers concerned about making their lives more livable and interested in knowing what that might mean. Combining first hand accounts of the attractions and distractions of city life, this book also introduces a wide range of perspectives about creating successful, livable cities, with examples from across America and around the world. The book conveys what leading thinkers—including James Howard Kunstler, Jane Holtz Kay, Tony Hiss, Phillip Lopate, Bill McKibben, Myron Orfield, and john powell, among others—say about such topics as smart growth, opportunity-based housing, traffic calming, pedestrian rights, regional planning, riverfront redevelopment, urban agriculture, and the pleasures of a saunter down tree-lined streets to restaurants, theatres, shops, with the presence of other people. The mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, closed downtown streets to cars and built bus stops that load and unload passengers with the same speed as subways. In Boston, urban agriculture produces more than 10,000 pounds of vegetables each season. Minneapolis has redeveloped its riverfront while Manhattan ponders what to do along the Hudson. With these and other examples, Toward the Livable City reveals the many benefits of parks, healthy neighborhoods, and mixed use communities.
Emilie Buchwald has worked as an editor, poet, teacher, and award-winning children’s author. She is the co-founder and former publisher of Milkweed Editions. Buchwald has been honored with the prestigious McKnight Distinguished Artist Award, the Kay Sexton Award in recognition of outstanding work in fostering books, reading, and literary activity, and, in 2008, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, given by the National Book Critics Circle. Buchwald is also the author of the award-winning children’s novel, Gildaen, and she is currently the publisher of The Gryphon Press. She lives in Edina, Minnesota.
Impressing cover page, the book's content brings optimistic view towards the new generation's attitude. However, it has repetitive theories with few supporting examples. Overall: good reading!