Every once in a while a student asks for recommended books on planning. The web site "Planetizen" has developed a "Top 20" list, and we would not disagree much with its recommendations.
Planetizen 20
All-time greatest planning titles.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities,
by Jane Jacobs
The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects,
by Lewis Mumford
The Practice of Local Government Planning (Municipal Management Series),
by Charles Hoch
Civilizing American Cities: Writings on City Landscapes,
by Frederick Law Olmsted
The Image of the City,
by Kevin Lynch
The American City: What Works and What Doesn't,
by Alexander Garvin
Good City Form,
by Kevin Lynch
The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream,
by Peter Calthorpe
Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century,
by Peter Geoffrey Hall
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction,
by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York,
by Robert A. Caro
Edge City: Life on the New Frontier,
by Joel Garreau
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape,
by James Howard Kunstler
The Urban Villagers,
by Herbert J. Gans
The Essential William Whyte,
by William Hollingsworth Whyte
Design With Nature,
by Ian L. McHarg
Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
by William Cronon
Silent Spring,
by Rachel Carson
Planning in the USA: Policies, Issues, and Processes,
by Barry Cullingworth, J. Barry Cullingworth
NEWLY ADDED
Great Streets,
by Allan B. Jacobs
