Green Metropolis: What the City Can T...
David OwenMost Americans think of crowded cities as ecological nightmares-as wastelands of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams. Yet residents of compact urban centers, David Owen shows, individually consume less oil, electric...
The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels ...
Jennifer TothThousands of people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City and this book is about them, the so-called mole people. They live alone and in communities, in subway tunnels and below subway ...
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in...
Jill LeovyNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, USA TODAY, AND CHICAGO TRIBUNE • A masterly work of literary journalism about a senseless murder, a rele...
There Are No Children Here: The Story...
Alex KotlowitzThis is the moving and powerful account of two remarkable boys struggling to survive in Chicago\'s Henry Horner Homes, a public housing complex disfigured by crime and neglect.
Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years ...
Jonathan KozolIn this powerful and culminating work about a group of inner-city children he has known for many years, Jonathan Kozol returns to the scene of his previous prize-winning books, and to the children he has vividly portrayed, to share wi...
The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civ...
Elijah AndersonAn acclaimed sociologist illuminates the public life of an American city, offering a major reinterpretation of the racial dynamics in America.Elijah Anderson, called "one of our best urban ethnographers" by the New York Time...
Show Me A Hero: A Tale of Murder, Sui...
Lisa BelkinNOW AN HBO MINISERIESNot in my backyard -- that's the refrain commonly invoked by property owners who oppose unwanted development. Such words assume a special ferocity when the development in question is public housing. Lisa Belkin pe...
Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save th...
Elly BlueElly Blue's Bikenomics provides a surprising and compelling new perspective on the way we get around, where we live, and how we spend our money. The book provides an unflinching look at the real costs of transportation and roads, for...
"[An] inspired tour of the post modern city…Invigorating." ―Mark Kingwell, Harper’sHailed as an “original and fascinating book” (Times Literary Supplement), A History of Future Cities is Daniel Brook’s captivating investig...
Policing the Planet: Confronting Brok...
Jordan T. CampHow policing became the major political issue of our timeCombining firsthand accounts from activists with the research of scholars and reflections from artists, Policing the Planet traces the global spread of the broken-windows polici...
Holmes' Own Story: Confessed 27 Murde...
Jd CrightonA fascinating look into the mind of one of America's first serial killers! Featuring the confessions, death, and unusual concrete burial of H. H. Holmes. BONUS: Eighty-seven rare historical illustrations with sources! H. H. Holmes ...
Golden Gates: The Housing Crisis and ...
Conor DoughertyA New York times book review editors' choice a time magazine 100 must-read books of 2020, A stunning, deeply reported investigation into the housing crisis-with a new preface for the post-pandemic world, Spacious and affordable homes ...
Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the...
Mitchell DuneierA New York Times Notable Book of 2016On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto―a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck.In this swe...
Cities and the Creative Class gathers in one place for the first time the research leading up to Richard Florida's theory on how the growth of the creative economy shapes the development of cities and regions. In a new introduction, F...
The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities ...
Richard FloridaRichard Florida, one of the world's leading urbanists and author of The Rise of the Creative Class, confronts the dark side of the back-to-the-city movementIn recent years, the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into citie...
The End of the Suburbs: Where the Ame...
Leigh GallagherAccording to Fortune's Leigh Gallagher, powerful social, economic, and demographic forces are converging to render the suburbs unnecessary, and even undesirable, for an everincreasing number of Americans. Gallagher introduces...
City by City: Dispatches from the Ame...
Keith GessenA collection of essays--historical and personal--about the present and future of American citiesEdited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb, City by City is a collection of essays--historical, personal, and somewhere in between--about t...
Survival of the City: The Future of U...
Edward GlaeserOne of our great urbanists and one of our great public health experts join forces to reckon with how cities are changing in the face of existential threats the pandemic has only accelerated Cities can make us sick. That’s alw...
Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest...
Edward GlaeserA pioneering urban economist presents a myth-shattering look at the majesty and greatness of cities.America is an urban nation, yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, environmentally unfriendly . . . or are they? ...
Zonas Peligrosas: The Challenge of Cr...
Tom HareZonas Peligrosas: The Challenge of Creating Safe Neighborhoods in Central America examines indicators of orderliness and security in El Salvador, shows how policies and programs based on disorganization theory have been used, and why ...
The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Jo...
Brooke HauserInspired by the author's widely acclaimed New York Times article, The New Kids is immersion reporting at its most compelling. Brooke Hauser takes us deep inside a unique New York City high school over the course of a year as she follo...
The Battle of Lincoln Park: Urban Ren...
Daniel Kay HertzIn the years after World War II, a movement began to bring the middle class back from the Chicago suburbs to the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the city's North Side. In place of the old, poorly maintained apartments and dense streetsca...
No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in...
Edward HumesNow updated with a new introduction and afterword, this award-winning examination of the nation's largest juvenile criminal justice system in Los Angeles by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist is "an important book with a messa...
Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next...
John D. KasardaThis brilliant and eye-opening look at the new phenomenon called the aerotropolis gives us a glimpse of the way we will live in the near futureâand the way we will do business too. Â Not so long ago, airports were built near ci...
Palaces for the People: How Social In...
Eric Klinenberg“A comprehensive, entertaining, and compelling argument for how rebuilding social infrastructure can help heal divisions in our society and move us forward.”—Jon StewartNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • “Engag...
The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest...
Joel KotkinThe Human City presents the most cogent, evidence-based and clear-headed exposition of the pro-suburban argument. . . . enriching our understanding of what cities are about and what they can and must become." Wall Street Journal ...
Mediators: Aesthetics, Politics, and ...
Reinhold MartinReinhold Martin's Mediators is a series of linked meditations on the globalized city. Focusing on infrastructural, technical, and social systems, Martin explores how the aesthetics and the political economy of cities overlap and inter...
The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago...
Natalie Y. MooreA lyrical, intelligent, authentic, and necessary look at the intersection of race and class in Chicago, a Great American CityIn this intelligent and highly important narrative, Chicago-native Natalie Moore shines a light on contempor...
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller,...
David OwenRead David Owen's posts on the Penguin Blog.From the acclaimed New Yorker writer, a thought-provoking, innovative, and challenging new approach to protecting our environment. Most Americans think of cities as ecological nightmares-...
Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betr...
Wendy RudermanIn the vein of Erin Brockovich, The Departed, and T. J. English's Savage City comes Busted, the shocking true story of the biggest police corruption scandal in Philadelphia history, a tale of drugs, power, and abuse involving a rogue ...