Summer Reading: China, Economy, Urbanism

Last week, I wrote a review at All About Cities about a fascinating book, The Concrete Dragon, about China and how her cities are being transformed, leading up to the 2008 Olympics. It’s a powerful book, written in the language and context of architecture and planning, but revealing the magnitude of revolution underway in China–another perspective on the cost extracted from her people and the challenge we face as China spares no expense to challenge us economically. I also highly recommend China Shakes the World.

Along similar economic policy lines, I read MIT’s book How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today’s Global Economy by Suzanne Berger, but I cannot recommend it. Good substance, but the methodology and completeness of the whole thing is a bit much. Summary: There are many ways for companies to be competitive; no one path guarantees success or is a road to failure. Adapt and keep adapting and maybe you will do well.

I also finally got around to reading Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck. I am about halfway through and am a little disappointed. This book essentially declares war on suburbia. Suburbanites will see it as a polemic, an elitist lecture on the evils of automobiles and how we all secretly want to live in cities. There is good substance in this book as well, but it leaps a bit at times–at one point seeming to argue that perhaps the massacre at Columbine high school was related to suburban planning failures. The book is kind of preaching to the choir…or perhaps simply just a good starting point for materials that are covered in excruciating detail in A Better Way to Zone: Ten Principles to Create More Livable Cities by Donald L. Elliott.

A Better Way to Zone is a tough book to review. The author candidly admits the topic is not a sexy one and the reader will not be surprised by understatement in this regard. However, after reading Suburban Nation, I realize for those who really want to understand the practical details of Zoning–not just spout self-righteous drivel about the ghettos of suburbia populated by degenerate soccer moms driving minivans–A Better Way to Zone gives you the background to do so…but it is kind of like reading university lectures. And there are too many principles, most of which seem self-evident. But the devil is always in the details…and this book delivers those details.

A great story of how and why people are choosing to live where they want–and what those choices may signal for new urban centers–is Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life. This book is reviewed at All About Cities by Wendy Waters and is part study, part how-to book on choosing your place. It is not as theoretical as Florida’s other books.

After reviewing this list, I do not know how I found time to read all these books in the past few months. Many train delays, I guess.