Post #1754000
2026-04-27 02:45 UTC
Replies (14)
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@SRLevine@neuromatch.social 2026-04-27 02:51
@ipsquiggle The classic book on parking is "the high cost of free parking", which I read about 2/3 of before I threw in the towel (it's pretty dense and it was a lot of math for a light weekend read for me). Incredibly informative. I've heard recs for various Jane Jacobs books, but haven't read any myself.
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@julie@eigenmagic.net 2026-04-27 02:54
@ipsquiggle maybe Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language?
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@cerement@social.targaryen.house 2026-04-27 03:14
@ipsquiggle not a book but a ridiculously long article: https://medium.com/@erichunting/solarpunk-post-industrial-design-and-aesthetics-1ecb350c28b6
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@rustoleumlove@mastodon.online 2026-04-27 03:14
@ipsquiggle There are No Accidents by Jessie Singer is excellent, IMO sort of tangential to the topics you mention, tho. i found it to be a great nonfiction read another one i loved is Devil in the White City, which intertwines the true stories of a serial killer and the architect who pulled off the Chicago World's Fair https://jessiesinger.com/book.html https://eriklarsonbooks.com/book/the-devil-in-the-white-city/
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@cerement@social.targaryen.house 2026-04-27 03:18
@ipsquiggle and then for the historical category: - *A Pattern Language*, Christopher Alexander - *Death and Life of Great American Cities*, Jane Jacobs - *Image of the City*, Kevin Lynch - *Architecture for the Poor*, Hassan Fathy - *Life Between Buildings*, Jan Gehl and sidetracks: - *Architecture Without Architects*, Bernard Rudofsky - *Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism*, Julia Watson and more recent: - *Sprawl Repair Manual*, Galina Tachieva
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@abarker@mast.hpc.social 2026-04-27 03:37
@ipsquiggle Golden Gates by Conor Dougherty is a great intro to some of the characters and stories of urbanism politics in California, but maybe not as useful for game design. If the "models and systems" you're interested in are political, try Local Interests by Sarah Anzia. If they are economic, maybe Shut Out by Kevin Erdmann (quirky, maybe wrong, but interesting). If they are legal, try The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.
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@liseo@kuupiaq.social 2026-04-27 04:08
@handmade_ghost @ipsquiggle have you read clan of the cave bear?
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@handmade_ghost@sunny.garden 2026-04-27 04:19
@ipsquiggle It's more a look forward to future urban existence via a study of four cities across history (a Neolithic city in Turkey, the Ancient Roman city of Pompeii, medieval Angkor, and Indigenous Cahokia), but the interplay of evolving approaches to urban planning and the role of politics and invisible workers, etc., might interest you: _Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age_ by Annalee Newitz
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@sarae@ecoevo.social 2026-04-27 04:23
@ipsquiggle some classics: anything by Jane Jacobs How Buildings Learn, by Stewart Brand I am also always always recommending the work of Donovan Rypkema and his team, much of which you can read from https://www.placeeconomics.com/resource/
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@camerontw@social.coop 2026-04-27 04:40
@ipsquiggle Dolores Hayden's _Grand Domestic Revolution_ on the feminists who almost got us 'sharing cities' at the end of the 19thC - see also https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173814
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@cyplo@peninsula.industries 2026-04-27 04:43
@ipsquiggle not an urbanist but loved this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities
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@tewalds@sigmoid.social 2026-04-27 09:52
@ipsquiggle All three Strong Towns books are fantastic. Not Just Bikes is also a good starting point on YouTube.
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@gcvrsa@mastodon.social 2026-04-27 09:55
@ipsquiggle Christopher Alexander, "A Pattern Language" (1977). Jane Jacobs, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961) James Howard Kunstler, "The Geography of Nowhere" (1993) Jeff Speck, "Walkable City" (2012) David Owen, "Green Metropolis" (2009), "The Conundrum" (2012) Michael Pollan, "Second Nature" (1991), "A Place of My Own" (1997) John Sherwin Crosby, "The Orthocratic State" (1915) Henry George, "Progress and Poverty" (1879) Lewis Mumford, "The City in History" (1972)
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@GorgeCorps@pdx.social 2026-04-27 14:20
@ipsquiggle Design - Image of the City, Kevin Lynch. A classic providing now-accepted terms for the built environment. - A Pattern Languange, Christopher Alexander. Another classic. Mind-blowing opus. - Close-Up, Grady Clay. Humanizes how we experience the built environment. Stewardship - Congress for the New Urbanism, starting with their curated Great Ideas and 15-Minute City lists https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/category/great-ideas - Strong Towns, starting with their Strong Towns 101 posts https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020-5-14-americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020