In January 2020, I took a stroll through the Greenwich Peninsula in London (United Kingdom), which lies next to the River Thames. The Greenwich Peninsula is a large redevelopment project containing pseudo-public spaces, audacious public art, and high-rise luxury housing. The Emirates Airline owns and operates a gondola system that crosses the River Thames and connects Greenwich Peninsula to the central area of London. Along the banks of the River Thames, I noticed a bike share bicycle lying in the river bank covered in water and marsh. The bicycle, blue and white with the corporate sponsor’s name (Santander), had been thrown into the river and abandoned on the riverbank. The scene was surreal, and it made me question whether our planning field was really making a difference in transforming the urban realm.
The books reviewed in this volume point toward a resounding affirmation of the impact planning is making in cities. This section tackles urban transformation via physical infrastructure in both transportation and urban revitalization. The first two reviews focus on the prospects of increasing active mobility via bike share systems and by better managing the use of parking. The other three book reviews emphasize urban revitalization but from very diverse perspectives, such as downtown redevelopment, creating spontaneous lively places, and rebuilding a city after a large terrorist attack.
This section begins with a prevalent urban planning issue of importance: bike share. Bert van Wee of Delft University of Technology reviews Elliot Fishman’s book Bike Share and appreciates how Fishman provides a clear and thorough understanding of the current knowledge of bike share systems. The key lesson from the book, according to van Wee, is that bike share systems need to be designed and implemented via a user perspective by acknowledging three factors: safety, convenience, and spontaneity. The successful implementation of these factors contributes to effective bike share systems.
The next review, by David King of Arizona State University, tackles the issue of parking, a topic of debate and contention with planners, developers, and local government. King provides an excellent review of Donald Shoup’s Parking and the City. King states that Parking and the City presents an update to the ideas Shoup developed in his highly regarded book The High Cost of Free Parking. Parking and the City presents empirical evidence testing theories from Shoup’s earlier publication. In addition, Shoup presents important collected works from a new generation of scholars studying the impacts of parking on cities. The book is organized by Shoup’s three recommended reforms: eliminating minimum parking requirements, using prices to manage demand for on-street parking, and using the revenue to invest in public services through parking benefit districts.
Next, Peter Hendee Brown at the University of Minnesota reviews Alexander Garvin’s The Heart of the City: Creating Vibrant Downtowns for a New Century. Garvin’s book describes the transformation of American downtowns from single-purpose business districts to today’s dense, thriving, mixed-use, urban communities with increasingly large residential populations. According to Brown’s reading of The Heart of the City, one important factor played a principal role in this transformation: the promotion of business improvement districts as the key ingredient for any cities hoping to create thriving downtowns. Garvin includes specific strategies that have helped in this transformation: creating an image of a desirable place; providing access and circulation into, within, and around downtown; investing in an enlarged and enhanced public realm; creating a livable downtown environment; reducing the cost of doing business; and making it easy to reuse private property, alter land uses, remodel, and build new. Brown recommends the development community, public officials working with business improvement districts, and community development corporations read the book so they will gain a good understanding of how downtowns are currently transforming.
The next review by Floyd Lapp covers Charles R. Wolfe’s Urbanism Without Effort: Reconnecting With First Principles of the City. According to Lapp, Wolfe argues that naturally occurring aspects of city life create new spontaneous places, places that reconnect with classic ideas of city development from Jane Jacobs and Kevin Lynch such as the role paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks play in shaping the city. Wolfe identifies specific factors that intersect the built environment with important transportation modes that help cities reconnect with principles of a lively place. Lapp recommends this book as a continuation of the positive movement toward sustainable communities.
Concluding the review section is an in-depth, substantive, and superb review by Michael B. Teitz of the University of California, Berkeley. Teitz, in detail and with clarity, reviews Lynne Sagalyn’s Power at Ground Zero: Politics, Money, and the Remaking of Lower Manhattan. The brilliant book, according to Teitz, meticulously documents how the rebuilding of lower Manhattan took place after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Sagalyn details the planning, policy, technical, financial, emotional, and political processes involved in the daunting reconstruction. Teitz’s final assessment of the work is that “people who deplore grandiose public projects will find much to mine in the book. Those who value a public role in development may be encouraged that it is possible to work through all the thickets.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Gerardo Francisco Sandoval
Gerardo Francisco Sandoval is an associate professor in the School of Planning, Public Policy, & Manage-ment at the University of Oregon.