2026-09-03 18:20 UTC
Replies (26)
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@ryan@hachyderm.io 2026-09-04 17:18
Overwhelmed and grateful for everyone's suggestions and repostings! Here's a summary of everything suggested so far. Please read the thread if you're interested, folks have lots of helpful thoughts **Books** **- The Death and Life of Great American Cities** - Jane Jacobs **- A Pattern Language** - Christopher Alexander et al. **- Happy City** - Charles Montgomery **- Streetfight / Street Fight** - Janette Sadik-Khan **- The High Cost of Free Parking** - Donald Shoup **- Books by Melissa and Chris Bruntlett** (incl. *Curbing Traffic*) **- Walkable City** - Jeff Speck **- Cities of Tomorrow** - Peter Hall **- The Transit Metropolis** - Robert Cervero **- How Infrastructure Works** - Deb Chachra (@debcha@saturation.social) **- Hidden Systems** - Dan Nott **- The Works** - Kate Ascher **- Palaces for the People** - Eric Klinenberg - **Better Buses, Better Cities** - Steven Higashide **- Human Transit** - Jarrett Walker **- How Railways Will Fix the Future** - Gareth Dennis **- Life Between Buildings** - Jan Gehl **- Bo-miljø** - Ingrid Gehl **- How Buildings Learn** - Stewart Brand **- 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School** **- The Rietveld Schröder House** and **Rietveld: The Architecture of Gerrit Th. Rietveld** **- Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment** - Matrix **- Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies** - Leslie Kern - **There Are No Accidents** - Jessie Singer **- The Missing Middle** - Daniel Parolek **- De architectura** - Vitruvius **- Invisible Cities** - Italo Calvino **- Practical Engineering** - Grady Hillhouse **- Carlos Moreno's book** (15-minute cities) **- Books on Village Homes, Davis, California** **- The War on Cars book** **Accounts to Follow** - @BrentToderian@mastodon.online - @TheWarOnCars@mastodon.social - @notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com - @citynerd@nula.pub , @OhTheUrbanity@mastodon.social , @canadiancivil - @NickZander@varese.social - @debcha@saturation.social - https://urbanists.social **Podcasts** - urbcast - Gareth Dennis's railway/engineering podcast **Design Guides** - NACTO design guides (https://nacto.org/publications/design-guides/)
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@Gurre@mastodon.nu 2026-09-03 18:49
@ryan@hachyderm.io I'd say @TheWarOnCars@mastodon.social is a must to follow, and their book is one I've still got on my to-read list.
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@Av8rdan@squawk.mytransponder.com 2026-09-03 18:53
@ryan@hachyderm.io Not an "Urban Planning" person, but I can tell ya, having driven in France and Italy several times, roundabouts are the answer. Problem with putting them in 'Murica is people here are too arrogant, entitled and/or stupid to know how to use them. Never had a problem with Italian drivers, even driving thru Palermo, Sicily on my way to an AirBNB on the coast. It is complete chaos, but the drivers there do it every day so they are very good at it. People here can't even park their Escalade.
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@presidiet@gts.gestalt.noho.st 2026-09-03 19:27
@ryan@hachyderm.io Most by Peter Hall, but this one in particular https://archive.org/details/citiesoftomorrow0000hall Also very good https://www.amazon.com/Transit-Metropolis-Global-Inquiry/dp/1559635916
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@emanuelecariati@varese.social 2026-09-03 19:51
@ryan@hachyderm.io One of my friends is one of them. Tagging him here: @NickZander@varese.social
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@rhempel@cosocial.ca 2026-09-03 20:15
@ryan@hachyderm.io The Missing Middle
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@lookitmychicken@blorbo.social 2026-09-03 20:18
@ryan@hachyderm.io favourite book: A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al
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@ahltorp@mastodon.nu 2026-09-03 20:56
@ryan@hachyderm.io Oh yes, there are. There seems to be quite many of us, if you by "urban planning folks" include people interested in and knowledgeable about urban planning even if we don't work directly with designing urban environments, and instead "only" promote good urban environments in various ways.
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@blagh@hachyderm.io 2026-09-03 21:27
@ryan@hachyderm.io I liked Happy City by Charles Montgomery: https://happycities.com/the-book
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@bj@fosstodon.org 2026-09-03 21:28
@ryan@hachyderm.io what a great thread. So glad I caught it.
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@butterscotch@aus.social 2026-09-03 21:32
@ryan@hachyderm.io “Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment” by Matrix
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@12thRITS@mstdn.social 2026-09-03 21:39
@ryan@hachyderm.io https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of_Free_Parking
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@clickhere@mastodon.ie 2026-09-03 22:38
@ryan@hachyderm.io I don't know too many titles, but can defo recommend authors/activists: •Ingrid Gehl: wrote "Bo-miljø" and pioneered people-centric approaches to city design (influenced her husband, Jan Gehl) •Jane Jacobs: a legend, and way ahead of everyone else in her time •Janette Sadik-Khan: transformed New York City 2007-2013 •Jenifer Keesmat: transformed Toronto 2012-2017 •Punt 6, Equal Saree, Janet Sanz: Barcelona urbanists; Sanz introduced the city's people-focused Superblocks
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@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us 2026-09-03 22:44
@ryan@hachyderm.io https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Buildings_Learn
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@jectoons@comicscamp.club 2026-09-03 23:20
@ryan@hachyderm.io - Street Fight, by Janette Sadik-Khan - Curbing Traffic, by the Bruntletts - Happy City, by Charles Montgomery - Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies, by Leslie Kern Jane Jacobs's books are always an interesting read.
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@wil@beige.party 2026-09-03 23:29
@ryan@hachyderm.io A Pattern Language is wonderful. The ebook used to be free, don't know if it still is.
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@clew@ecoevo.social 2026-09-03 23:44
odd one out, but I find Vitruvius really interesting. You have to acclimatize to the translated classical style, but then there’s a lot of stuff I really didn’t expect. More practical and quotidian and incremental than his reputation. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20239 @ryan@hachyderm.io
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@sam@social.coop 2026-09-03 23:48
@ryan@hachyderm.io I'm just a layman, but two of my favorites are "Better Busses Better Cities" by Steven Higashide [1] and "Palaces for the People" by Eric Klinenberg! "Palaces for the People" in particular was something of a life changing book for me, a lot of my current views on the built environment were heavily influenced by that book. I should really give it a re-read. [1]: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642830149/better-buses-better-cities [2]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/557044/palaces-for-the-people-by-eric-klinenberg/
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@trainguyrom@techhub.social 2026-09-04 00:24
@ryan@hachyderm.io others have made very good suggestions, so I'll throw an urbanism-adjacent suggestion out there: How Railways Will Fix the Future by Gareth Dennis It's one of the only nonfiction books that I've actually read cover to cover. Most like it I'll read about a quarter of a chapter then skim before jumping to the next chapter, but that was one I actually found value in reading the whole thing and didn't feel much need to skim or skip bits. Gareth also has a very fascinating podcast on railways and engineering as well
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@Amiek@glammr.us 2026-09-04 00:30
@ryan@hachyderm.io follow @notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com
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@Ashedryden@xoxo.zone 2026-09-04 01:11
@ryan@hachyderm.io an off the beaten path pick: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/e6db3929-fedf-4f12-944c-b9797ef35757
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@carlcm@techhub.social 2026-09-04 01:58
@ryan@hachyderm.io the village homes story in Davis California is incredible and there are several excellent books about it. It is probably the best built neighbourhood in the country and it’s amazing that it actually happened.
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@rooftopjaxx@kolektiva.social 2026-09-04 03:25
@ryan@hachyderm.io in addition to Jane Jacobs a standard recommendation would be Colin Ward, eg https://libcom.org/article/talking-architects-colin-ward Also urbanists.social
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@2S4F@c.im 2026-09-04 05:25
@ryan@hachyderm.io 'invisible cities'
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@LillyHerself@mastodon.social 2026-09-05 01:36
@ryan@hachyderm.io Lewis Mumford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_in_History
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@greenfrogg_nl@mastodon.nl 2026-09-05 14:49
@ryan@hachyderm.io There are more sides, Urbanised area's is only 10% of the land surface. Roughly 50% of the population lives there. The other half live in semi urban and rural area's. From my background I focus on energy supply. Planning is important for all. In the case of the future energy mix, urbanised area's are dependant for their energy supply from the rural area's. Especially for wind energy. Energy transportation lines are costly, so it has to be generated as most as possible close to urbanised area's.