1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910463872503321

Autore

Gillette Howard

Titolo

Civitas by design [[electronic resource] ] : building better communities, from the garden city to the new urbanism / / Howard Gillette, Jr

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2010

ISBN

0-8122-2222-9

1-283-89107-7

0-8122-0528-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (233 p.)

Disciplina

307.1/2160973

Soggetti

City planning - United States - History

Community development - United States - History

Urbanization - United States - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Progressive reform through environmental intervention -- The garden city in America -- The city : film as artifact -- The evolution of neighborhood planning -- The planned shopping center in suburb and city -- James Rouse and American city planning -- The new urbanism: "organizing things that matter" -- Civitas in the design of low-income housing.

Sommario/riassunto

Since the end of the nineteenth century, city planners have aspired not only to improve the physical living conditions of urban residents but also to strengthen civic ties through better design of built environments. From Ebenezer Howard and his vision for garden cities to today's New Urbanists, these visionaries have sought to deepen civitas, or the shared community of citizens.In Civitas by Design, historian Howard Gillette, Jr., takes a critical look at this planning tradition, examining a wide range of environmental interventions and their consequences over the course of the twentieth century. As American reform efforts moved from progressive idealism through the era of government urban renewal programs to the rise of faith in markets, planners attempted to cultivate community in places such as



Forest Hills Gardens in Queens, New York; Celebration, Florida; and the post-Katrina Gulf Coast. Key figures-including critics Lewis Mumford and Oscar Newman, entrepreneur James Rouse, and housing reformer Catherine Bauer-introduced concepts such as neighborhood units, pedestrian shopping malls, and planned communities that were implemented on a national scale. Many of the buildings, landscapes, and infrastructures that planners envisioned still remain, but frequently these physical designs have proven insufficient to sustain the ideals they represented. Will contemporary urbanists' efforts to join social justice with environmentalism generate better results? Gillette places the work of reformers and designers in the context of their times, providing a careful analysis of the major ideas and trends in urban planning for current and future policy makers.