The best and most timely books on urban planning and land use of 2023
Planetizen’s Top Planning Books of 2023
Planners Across America: The Book
A collection of interviews with planning directors from some of the country’s 50 largest cities, published by Planetizen Press.
The Top Urban Planning Books of 2022
An annual list of the must-read books related to urban planning and its intersecting fields.
Why California Should Not, Cannot Solve Its Housing Crisis By Building New Cities
A recent essay advocates for the development of a new city in California to alleviate the state’s housing crisis. The argument needs a few tweaks.
The YIMBY-NIMBY Debate Gets ‘Uninteresting’
Labels like “YIMBY” and “NIMBY” may be crude—but so what? One of them wants to solve America’s housing crises. The other does not. Un-housed and under-housed people cannot wait for a perfect ideology to come along.
The Top Urban Planning Books of 2021
Planetizen’s annual list of the top urban planning books of the year is here—maintaining a tradition that dates back to 2002.
The Miseducation of Cities
A review of the provocative new book by Davarian L. Baldwin, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower
New Book, ‘Land,’ Searches for Solid Ground
Simon Winchester’s new book, Land, brings global scope to the concepts of land use.
The Top Urban Planning Books of 2020
The public health crisis of the coronavirus pandemic upended all the normal day-today routines this year. At least there are plenty of great urban planning books to read.
The Top Urban Planning Books of the Decade
These 14 books, selected by Planetizen for lasting relevance and excellence in research and rhetoric, will continue to define the ambitions and the shortcomings of the urban planning field in the decade that was the 2010s.
The Top Urban Planning Books of 2019
The decade wraps up with another engaging crop of highly readable and recommendable books on the subject of urban planning. There’s a lot to learn, on many related subjects, among this year’s top planning books.
Take Me Out to the City
Architecture critic Paul Goldberger analyzes the evolution of baseball stadiums and celebrates their essential connection to cities in “Ballpark: Baseball in the American City.”
Stampede of New Residents Challenges Fort Worth
An interview with Fort Worth Planning and Development Director Randle Harwood on the planning practices and ideas driving the future of one of the nation’s fastest growing cities.
Gentrification Studies Must Inspire Solutions
The study of gentrification took center stage at the recent conference of the Urban Affairs Association. It’s up to planners to put all of that research to good use.
Who’s to Blame for Gentrification? Planners, Apparently
Capital City casts planners as lackeys, serving the forces of capitalism.
Top 10 Urban Planning Books – 2018
Planetizen’s annual list of top books covers subjects in all varieties of planning: urban planning, community planning, environmental planning, and more.
The Clarity of Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi, who died last week at 93, was not an urbanist as such. But in rejecting modernism and bringing honesty to discussions about aesthetics, Venturi deserves a debt of gratitude from planners and other architects alike.
Urban Utopias Under African Skies
An exhibit by Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez at the Museum of Modern Art invokes urban idealism at the same time that it serves as a foil for poverty and deprivation in the megacities of the developing world.