Overview
Written by an award-winning and internationally recognized expert on cities
Recommends actions that will help any downtown thrive, with examples from many different American cities
Author brings an insider perspective to successful projects profiled in the book
Focus on downtowns, rather than entire metropolitan areas, is unique
Access this book
Other ways to access
Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
In The Heart of the City, distinguished urban planner Alexander Garvin shares lessons on how to plan for a mix of housing, businesses, and attractions; enhance the public realm; improve mobility; and successfully manage downtown services. Garvin opens the book with diagnoses of downtowns across the United States, including the people, businesses, institutions, and public agencies implementing changes. In a review of prescriptions and treatments for any downtown, Garvin shares brief accounts—of both successes and failures—of what individuals with very different objectives have done to change their downtowns. The final chapters look at what is possible for downtowns in the future, closing with suggested national, state, and local legislation to create standard downtown business improvement districts to better manage downtowns.
This book will help public officials, civic organizations, downtown business property owners, and people who care about cities learn from successful recent actions in downtowns across the country, and expand opportunities facing their downtown. Garvin provides recommendations for continuing actions to help any downtown thrive, ensuring a prosperous and thrilling future for the 21st-century American city.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Garvin is Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning and Management at Yale University, where he has taught a wide range of subjects including “Introduction to the Study of the City,” which for more than 52 years has remained one of the most popular courses in Yale College. In addition, he teaches three courses in the School of Architecture, including: “An Introduction to Planning & Real Estate Development,” “Residential Design, Development, and Management,” and “Intermediate Planning & Development.”
Garvin is on the board of directors of the Forum for Urban Design and the Citizens Housing and Planning Council. Between 1996 and 2004, he was a fellow of the Urban Land Institute for whom he has organized and taught workshops on basic real estate development, the residential development process, and the role of design in real estate. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Skyscraper Museum, the Ed Bacon Foundation, and the Society of American City and Regional Planning History, as well as the National Advisory Council of the Trust for Public Land.
Garvin is the author of the book The American City: What Works, What Doesn't, published by McGraw-Hill and winner of the 1996 American Institute of Architects book award in urbanism. (The substantially revised, updated, expanded, now full color 3rd edition was released during in 2013). He also is the author of The Planning Game: Lessons from Great Cities, published by W. W. Norton in 2013; Public Parks: The Key to Livable Communities, published by W. W. Norton in 2010; Parks, Recreation, and Open Space: A 21st Century Agenda, published in 2001 by the American Planning Association; and one of the principal authors of Urban Parks and Open Space, published in 1997 jointly by the Trust for Public Land and the Urban Land Institute.
Garvin earned his B.A., M.Arch, and M.U.S. from Yale University.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Heart of the City
Book Subtitle: Creating Vibrant Downtowns for a New Century
Authors: Alexander Garvin
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-950-0
Publisher: Island Press Washington, DC
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Copyright Information: Alexander Garvin 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-1-61091-950-0Published: 21 August 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 248
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning, Popular Science in Nature and Environment, Sustainability Management