How Cities Work

A past Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Alex Marshall is a freelance journalist in New York City, who has written about urban design for the Washington Post,George, Metropolis, Planning, and other national publications.

• Introduction: The Sex of Cities Chapter 1: A Tale of Two Towns: Kissimmee versus Celebration and the New Urbanism Chapter 2: The End of Place Chapter 3: The Deconstructed City: The Silicon Valley Chapter 4: Trading Places: The City and the Suburb Chapter 5: Jackson Heights: An Anachronism Finds Its Way Chapter 6: The Master Hand: The Role of Government in Building Cities Chapter 7: Portland and Oregon: Taming the Forces That Create the Modern Metropolitan Area Chapter 8: No Place Called Home: Community at the Millennium Chapter 9: Conclusion. Getting There: Building Healthy Cities Acknowledgments Notes Selected References Index

"Concern with traffic, environmental indifference and careless land development patterns, indeed, growing awareness of the many consequences of sprawl has led to calls for 'smart growth.' One of the smartest ways to prepare to effectuate smarter growth is to read How Cities Work. In a gentle but lucid and persuasive way Alex Marshall reminds us that the responsibility for making and maintaining good communities is a public one--that city-building is a public art dependent on public leadership, not acquiescence to private caprice. Anyone interested in helping to sustain rather than complain about the loss of community must read this book." --Alex Krieger, Chair, Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design "This is an outstanding book that I hope and expect will make a major contribution to the current debate on cities and suburbs." --Robert Fishman, author of American Planning Tradition: Culture and Policy and Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia " ... rich in evocative metaphors ... written in a lively style"--Geography, January 2002 "How Cities Work is an engaging read, containing important messages relevant not only to those in the urban design profession, but also to the wider public who have a role in deciding how cities should be shaped."--Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 7 No. 3, 2002