TOPIC

Books

Circulation Desk

If These Walls Could Talk

Whither housing? Ask the houses. In four recent books, home is where the histories of housing policy and politics makes themselves known.

Circulation Desk

Public Space Arms Race

Battles for inclusion and exclusion in the life of the city more often end in stand-offs than in skirmishes.

Circulation Desk

Little Black Boxes

For the Circulation Desk, five books explore the stuff that binds us together in infrastructure networks public and private, old and new.

Circulation Desk

Planning for the Worst

Four tales of the cities that arise from moral and environmental disaster. Can we ever really start anew?

Circulation Desk

Power Lines

Three graphic novels dramatize the forces that shape the city, recasting old stories of good versus evil onto high-rises and streetscapes.

Circulation Desk

If Developers Ruled the World ...

Introducing the Circulation Desk, a bimonthly snapshot of the urbanist titles that turn our gears. On Inauguration Eve, could four recent biographies of real estate giants deliver insight into the years ahead?

Middlewhere: Landscapes of Library Logistics

Shannon Mattern takes us inside two examples of the extensive, yet relatively invisible, infrastructures that drive New York's libraries and explains how their logistical systems shape our physical, political, and intellectual landscapes.

City of Stories: A Conversation with Constance Rosenblum

Veteran journalist Constance Rosenblum reflects on a career spent highlighting individual voices to tell the story of New York.

Against the Smart City

Adam Greenfield critiques the prevailing definition of the "smart city" and calls for an alternative vision that understands and responds to the messy realities of human existence.

Toward a Stronger Social Infrastructure: A Conversation with Eric Klinenberg

Eric Klinenberg explains the complexities and importance of neighborhood networks and community spaces and discusses the opportunities they present to designers and urbanists.