The best and most timely books on urban planning and land use of 2023
Planetizen’s Top Planning Books of 2023
Book Review: Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Review of How Big Things Get Done, by Bent Flyvbjerg.
The Top Urban Planning Books of 2022
An annual list of the must-read books related to urban planning and its intersecting fields.
Reaching for the Heavens
Review of Super Tall, by Stefan Al, about engineering and urbanism in contemporary skyscrapers.
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.
Summer Book Roundup, 2021
California always offers ripe inspiration for scholarly and popular books alike. The past year or so has produced a particularly impressive crop, both in number and quality.
The High, Hidden Costs of Amazon
Review of Fulfillment, by Alec MacGinnis
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.
Sexism and the City
Leslie Kern’s new book Feminist City will likely ring familiar with women planners — and provide male planners crucial insights for making cities more welcoming and equitable for everyone
CP&DR Podcast: Bill Fulton & Josh Stephens on The Urban Mystique
CP&DR Editor Bill Fulton speaks with Contributing Editor Josh Stephens about his new book, The Urban Mystique: Notes on California, Los Angeles, and Beyond.
YIMBYism’s Golden Moment
In Golden Gates, Conor Dougherty chronicles the rise of the YIMBY movement and California’s battle over housing — with the aplomb of an East Bay skateboarder
How Los Angeles Landed Its First Olympics
Barry Siegel’s new book about the 1932 Olympics shows how much chutzpah counted in early Los Angeles
Inadvertent Praise For California’s Environmental Ethic
This Land skewers the federal land management agencies — and, in the process, indirectly provides a good reason to keep CEQA and California’s other environmental laws
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.