San Antonio College Library

Draws on experiences and data from a range of cities and countries around the globe in making the case for city planning that moves beyond mobility. Cervero, Guerra, and Al contend that prioritizing the needs and aspirations of people and the creation of great places is as important, if not more important, than expediting movement. The authors provide an optimistic outlook about the potential to transform places for the better and they celebrate the...

The world's cities are growing at a faster rate than ever before. An estimated 75 million people around the world move to an urban area every year. And as our metropolises become more and more crowded, architects, designers and builders face a constant challenge: How to create new and modern spaces in cities where every square-inch has already been developed.

"The use of the word "landscape" to describe the formation and infrastructure of cities seems to express contemporary preoccupations with the postindustrial urban condition. The Industrial Revolution is often seen as a turning point in the emergence of the urban landscape of the modern metropolis, and the large city as commonly experienced today in the world is certainly dependent on a range of recent (or quite recent) breakthroughs in construction...

In Visions upon the Land, Karl Hess, Jr., a leading thinker on western environmental issues, applies the concepts of laissez-faire politics to the management of western rangelands. He looks at how the history of the American West has been shaped by people's visions of the land as it should be, rather than as it is, and proposes a radical new system for the management of western public lands. Hess argues that three distinct visions - the Jeffersonian...

In Zoned in the USA, Sonia A. Hirt explores municipal zoning from a comparative and international perspective, drawing on archival resources and contemporary land-use laws from England, Germany, France, Australia, Russia, Canada, and Japan to challenge assumptions about American cities and the laws that guide them. -- from back cover.

Land of Bright Promise is a fascinating exploration of the multitude of land promotions and types of advertising that attracted more than 175,000 settlers to the Panhandle-South Plains area of Texas from the late years of the nineteenth century to the early years of the twentieth. Shunned by settlers for decades because of its popular but forbidding image as a desert filled with desperados, savage Indians, and solitary ranchers, the region was seen...

Urban planning is vital in helping communities take stock of what's good and bad about the community in the present and determining the best improvements to make for the future. Here is a practical overview of this fascinating field.

Scientists predict that the environment over the next 100 years will be threatened by severe challenges--the loss of biodiversity, expected changes in world-wide climate, and decreasing amounts of arable land and potable water for an exploding human population. All of these will greatly impact how the earth will be able to support life in the future. And at the center of these global environmental changes are developments in land use. Over the last...