Annotated Bibliography on New Urbanism

(Courtesy of Charles Bohl)

A wide range of recommendations here, many of them very good, but in order to introduce New Urbanism you should start with the primary documents:

The Charter for the New Urbanism - the short manifesto downloadable from the cnu.org web site and/or the book of essays on the principles written by a few dozen people in Leccese, Michael and McCormick, Kathleen eds. _Charter of the New Urbanism_ (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000).

Katz, Peter. ) _The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community_. (New York: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1994).
The short opening essays by Calthorpe and other CNU founders on the region, neighborhoods-districts-corridors, and block-street-building are still some of the best introductions, and the plans, illustrations and photos of projects (most of them unbuilt at the time) were the visual material that really ignited interest in New Urbanism.

Dutton, John A. _New American Urbanism : Re-forming the Suburban Metropolis_. (Milano : New York, NY: Skira; Distributed in North America and Latin America by Abbeville Pub. Group, 2000). This book is a good update to the Katz book, much more dense, but also filled with projects and graphic material.

Steuteville, Rob. _New Urbanism: Comprehensive Report and Best Practices Guide_. (Ithaca, NY: New Urban News, 2004) combines introductory material with well organized topical sections that are practitioner-oriented and cut across a wide range of fields.

Duany, Andres, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck. _Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream_. (New York: North Point Press, a Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000). A popular presentation of polemic and thought from leading new urbanist thinkers.

Kunstler, James Howard. _The Geography of Nowhere_. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993). No introduction to New Urbanism is complete without at least a generous excerpt from Kunstler's searing critique of the U.S. built environment - a student favorite.

Beyond introductory readings:

It would also be good to include an article on the rural-to-urban transect in the _Journal of the American Planning Association_ (JAPA) and the _Journal of Urban Design_ by Emily Talen, Andres Duany, and others or in a new theme issue of the journal _Places_ devoted to "Building Community Across the Transect" (Places 18:1 2006).

For a perspective on New Urbanism in its more urban context that you can download see: Bohl, Charles C. "New Urbanism in the City: Potential Applications and Implications for Distressed Inner-City Neighborhoods." _Housing Policy Debate_, 2000, 11(4), pp. 761-801 along with commentaries by Michael Pyatok, Shelley Poticha and the editors

From here you can choose from 57 varieties of commentaries and critique of New Urbanism, much of it of the armchair variety, but more recently getting into actual research on the plans, codes and built places produced by new urbanists.

For a firsthand perspective by an American Studies professor who lived in a New Urbanist town for a year, and who writes in an accessible, wide ranging and critical manner that students enjoy try: Ross, Andrew. _The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney’s New Town_. (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999). Ross lived in Celebration at a time when there were about 1200 more articles written about the town than there were people living there, but by actually living there he provides a much more in-depth perspective.

Bibliographies of articles, theses and dissertations on or related to New Urbanism can be found here:

Congress for New Urbanism