Posted 2005-10-24

Book Notes by John December

This book helps the reader understand urban ways of living, choose a personality-matching urban type, and evaluate specific urban areas for livability. This book's strength is its evocation of the joys of urban living. Ezell conveys the feelings of freedom and serendipity that diverse, human-scaled, and walkable urban environments can give. He describes the idea of urban energy--emotional responses to urban forms--and how surface parking lots drain it.

Ezell presents instructions for understanding and choosing urban environments. He presents a taxonomy of urban types and examples of these types:

• Postindustrial
  • Omaha, NE: Old Market
  • Chattanooga, TN: Southside
  • Milwaukee, WI: Third Ward
  • Kansas City, MO: River Market
  • Richmond, VA: Shockoe Bottom
  • Oklahoma City, OK: Bricktown
  • Memphis, TN: Downtown
  • Dayton, OH: Downtown
  • Pittsburgh, PA: The Strip
  • Los Angeles, CA: Historic Core
  • St. Louis, MO: WashHo
  • Wichita, KS: Old Town
• Garden
  • Savannah, GA
  • Louisville, KY: Old Louisville
  • Baltimore, MD: Mount Vernon
  • Little Rock, AR: Quawpaw
  • Nashville, TN, Historic East
  • Columbus, OH: German Villae
  • St. Louis, MO: Soulard
  • Phoenix, AZ: Roosevelt
  • Dayton, OH: Oregon
  • Lexington, KY: Ear East
  • Jacksonville, FL: Springfield
• Eclectic
  • New York, NY: Greenwich Village
  • Columbus, OH: Short North
  • Chattanooga, TNY: Northsore
  • San Diego, CA: Little Italy
  • Cleveland, OH: Ohio City
  • Indianapolis, IN: Northeast Quad
  • Richmond, VA: Fan District
  • Buffalo, NY: Elmwood Village
  • Rochester, NY: East
• Blank Canvas
  • Detroit, MI
  • Fort Worth, TX: South
  • Jackson, MS: Farish Village
  • Tulsa, OK: Inner Dispersal Loop
  • Huntsville, AL: Downtwon
  • Las Vegas, NV: Downtown
  • Des Moines, IA: East Village
  • Kansas City, MO: SoLo
  • Birmingham, AL: Midtown
  • Columbus, OH: King-Lincoln
  • Cincinnati, OH

Ezell's general guidance about thinking urban--meeting needs for work, shopping, and entertainment in a walkable neighborhood--serves as a guide for readers as well as a perspective that urban planners should examine.

My only critcism of this book is that Ezell has downplayed some of the difficult issues urban dwellers face. While he points out that urban crime is often a matter of fear than reality (pp. 237-238), he does little to caution readers about very real urban problems. However, urban issues need not negate the positive aspects of urban living. In fact, if politicians, city planners, and citizens would consider dealing with some of these issues, urban living would become even more attractive.

Related Links

• People Places: Car-Free: links to help you have a car-free lifestyle.

Related Books

• Streetfight
• The Wealth of Cities
• Ideal Cities
• The New Geography
• The City in Mind
• Making Places Special
• A Certain Somewhere
• Life 2.0
• The City: A Global History
• The High Cost of Free Parking
• Parking and the City
• Who's Your City?
• The Option of Urbanism
• After the Car
• Green Metropolis
• Triumph of the City
• The Great Inversion
• The End of the Suburbs
• Urban Street Design Guide
• Dead End
• Why I Walk
• Where We Want to Live