City Rules - by Emily Talen (Paperback)

About the Book

City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that rules like zoning and subdivision regulation are primary determinants of urban form. While many contemporary codes encourage sprawl and even urban blight, that hasn't always been the case-and it shouldn't be in the future.

Talen provides a visually rich history, showing how certain eras used rules to produce beautiful, walkable communities, while others created just the opposite. She makes complex regulations understandable, demystifying zoning and illustrating how written rules translate into real-world consequences. Most importantly, Talen proposes changes to these rules that will actually enhance communities' freedom to develop unique spaces.

Book Synopsis

City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionals in urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules of city-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle, our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that regulations are a primary detriment to the creation of a desirable urban form. While many contemporary codes encourage sprawl and even urban blight, that hasn't always been the case-and it shouldn't be in the future.

Talen provides a visually rich history, showing how certain eras used rules to produce beautiful, walkable, and sustainable communities, while others created just the opposite. She makes complex regulations understandable, demystifying city rules like zoning and illustrating how written codes translate into real-world consequences. Most importantly, Talen proposes changes to these rules that will actually enhance communities' freedom to develop unique spaces.

Review Quotes

"...close examination and clear explanation...an engaging account that shows contemporary city builders and reformers working with codified ideas of past generations that in their institutional form--as rules--continue to wield significant influence."-- "Annals of the Association of American Geographers"

"...insightful and intelligent... City Rules offers an essential basis for how to proceed."-- "Better! Cities & Towns"

"...Emily Talen's new book City Rules: How Regulations Affects Urban Form is so interesting and important. It makes totally clear that architects and designers don't determine how small or big or what form to make our houses, the rules do. And those rules are often arbitrary, capricious and stupid."-- "Treehugger"

"convincing and practical"-- "International Journal of Urban and Regional Research"

"An interdisciplinary audience whose research interests focus on the regulatory, physical, and historical attributes of cities should find Talen's critical analysis of zoning useful."-- "Journal of Urban Affairs"

"It is primarily historical, tracing the origins of urban rules in the USA, the various ways in which they have been applied, and the arguments for and against which they have been generated. The story is fascinating and well told."-- "Urban Design"

"This book has long been needed to show the unintended consequences of use-based 'Euclidean' zoning, how we need to change our regulations to achieve a more desirable outcome."-- "Urban Review STL"

"Ultimately, Talen aims to create more 'walkable, diverse, compact, and beautiful' cities, and this book will be especially interesting and valuable to students of urban planning and architecture who share these important goals."-- "CHOICE"

About the Author

Emily Talen is Professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and Director of the Phoenix Urban Research Lab at Arizona State University. She is also Coeditor of the Journal of Urbanism.