Urban Alchemy - by Mindy Thompson Fullilove (Paperback)

About the Book

Investigating urban segregation from a social health perspective, the author presents ways to strengthen neighborhood connectivity and empower marginalized communities.

Book Synopsis

An identification of the problems of divided neighborhoods and nine tools that can mend them What if divided neighborhoods were causing public health problems? What if a new approach to planning and design could tackle both the built environment and collective well-being at the same time? What if cities could help each other? Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, the acclaimed author of Root Shock, uses her unique perspective as a public health psychiatrist to explore and identify ways of healing social and spatial fractures simultaneously. Using the work of French urbanist Michel Cantal-Dupart and the American urban design firm Rothschild Doyno Collaborative as guides as well as urban restoration projects from France and the US as exemplary cases, Fullilove identifies nine tools that can mend our broken cities and reconnect our communities to make them whole.

Review Quotes

"Her [Mindy Fullilove's] baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works. "Urban Alchemy" emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings. Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with "Keep the Whole City in Mind," continuing through "Unpuzzle the Fractured Space" and ending with "Celebrate Your Accomplishments.""
--Charles Rosenblum, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The book is actually a collection of bright and joyous urban tales played out by Fullilove, an exuberant storyteller.

--Annie Coggan"American Institute Of Architects' Oculus" (01/29/2015)

-Her (Mindy Fullilove's) baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works.

-Urban Alchemy- emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings.

Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with -Keep the Whole City in Mind,- continuing through -Unpuzzle the Fractured Space- and ending with -Celebrate Your Accomplishments.--

--Charles Rosenblum-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette- (09/01/2013)

"Her (Mindy Fullilove's) baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works.

"Urban Alchemy" emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings.

Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with "Keep the Whole City in Mind," continuing through "Unpuzzle the Fractured Space" and ending with "Celebrate Your Accomplishments.""

--Charles Rosenblum"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" (09/01/2013)

"Her (Mindy Fullilove's) baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works.

"Urban Alchemy" emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings.

Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with "Keep the Whole City in Mind," continuing through "Unpuzzle the Fractured Space" and ending with "Celebrate Your Accomplishments.""

--Charles Rosenblum"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" (09/01/2013)


"Her [Mindy Fullilove's] baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works. "Urban Alchemy" emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings. Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with "Keep the Whole City in Mind," continuing through "Unpuzzle the Fractured Space" and ending with "Celebrate Your Accomplishments.""
Charles Rosenblum, "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette""

The book is actually a collection of bright and joyous urban tales played out by Fullilove, an exuberant storyteller.--Annie Coggan"American Institute Of Architects' Oculus" (01/29/2015)

"Her (Mindy Fullilove's) baseline concern with the dignity and wisdom of individuals, as well as the absolute necessity of broad-based consensus building, puts her approach on a clear moral high ground to which every urban planner and builder ought to give greater commitment, because it's right and because it works.

"Urban Alchemy" emerges as a book because years of working to counteract the ills of urban destruction have yielded significant successes in the form of insights, relationships, spaces and even, with the help of collaborators, some buildings.

Yet Dr. Fullilove's grounding in disciplines outside urban design results in a complex and multivalent work. To some degree, it is a handbook, with a nine-point instruction list for how to improve cities, starting with "Keep the Whole City in Mind," continuing through "Unpuzzle the Fractured Space" and ending with "Celebrate Your Accomplishments.""--Charles Rosenblum"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" (09/01/2013)

About the Author

Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, is Professor of Urban Policy and Health, Urban Policy Analysis & Management Program, Milano School for International Affairs, Management & Urban Policy, THE NEW SCHOOL for Public Engagement.