Customer Reviews

Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature

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Thank god for the current trend toward the generalization of textbooks.

I don't mean generalization in the sense of broadening or watering-down of subject matter, but rather in writing: many more texts in relatively technical fields are being written so that they can be appreciated interdisciplinarily, but professionals in related and sometimes even slightly-unrelated fields, and other folks who may simply be interested in the topic. It's good marketing, too, of course - it opens up much larger markets both academically and professionally, and as long as the book contains enough authority to convince instructors and professionals to purchase (or trust) it, it's a win-win situation for the publisher and author as well as the audience.

Douglas Farr's Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature (Wiley, 2008; foreword by Andres Duany) falls into the category of win-win for everyone. A very well-illustrated primer on the subject, it appeals to planners, architects, landscape designers, engineers and other folks interested in integrating their work into the larger natural environment.

Duany - the great architect and urban planner whose work with Arquitectonica shaped what we think of as "Florida modern" and whose current firm, DPZ, has become a de facto leader of the New Urbanism movement - suggests that the problem with such books is often that they most often fail to engage the reader in any kind of dialogue by simply being too technical, or by failing to instruct by simply being too exhortative and dogmatic. Luckily, Farr gives more than enough data and instruction in the dozen linked essays and case studies to instruct - but never loses sight of the fact that he's along with us for the ride, not talking at us but at our elbow, learning along with us, sharing both successes and failures and an honest interest in building communities that complement, rather than exclude, the unmanufactured world.

There's so much more here than just part one's "Case for Sustainable Urbanism." Other sections focus on the type of leadership and communication strategies most helpful in implementing both small and large-scale projects; technical tools and special techniques for community involvement are also explored extensively. Other chapters discuss the role of density, how to approach corridor situations, diagramming neighborhoods and the various types of housing that complement specific types of neighborhoods, "biophilia" - including everything from designing walkable streets to integrating wastewater management - and extensive essays on high-performance buildings and infrastructure. The last section of the book is given over to case studies, which both illustrate the preceding chapters with easy-to-understand real-world examples of sustainable success stories & offer solutions for those of us slogging through similar projects or at an impasse with a particular audience.

I recommend the book without hesitation to any planner interested in integrating sustainable projects in urban infill or exurban growth environments, as well as other aficionados of new urbanism topics. It's an entertaining read AND a necessary reference; it will replace several books on the already-overloaded shelves of a number of planners I know.

Every once in awhile you find a book that becomes a new favorite. That happened recently with the arrival in our Livable Communities Coalition offices of this fabulous book by Doug Farr. Not long after receiving and beginning to read it, I had the pleasure of facilitating a workshop for the development of a "sustainability element" for the master plan for an intown Atlanta neighborhood. We are now organizing the outcome of that workshop for consideration by the neighborhood and the city. It feels as though Farr has handed me the answers to a final exam before I have to take the test.

Farr's book combines passionate, compelling arguments for design reform with more than 100 pages of short essays. The essays explain how to implement sustainable urbanism and present case studies to illustrate his points. The book has given me a logical framework for organizing and connecting concepts and recommendations. And with just the right amount of detail - enough to get the point across, with where to go if you need more.

Reduced to its most basic tenets, Farr's sustainable urbanism is walkable and transit-served urbanism integrated with high-performing buildings and infrastructure. As Farr puts it, high-performing infrastructure is an emerging field that combines many strains of reform: smart growth concerns about the financial burden imposed by new infrastructure for greenfield development; the New Urbanist's desire for humane, pedestrian-scaled infrastructure design; and the green building movement's focus on resource "greening" and consumption efficiencies.

If smart growth, sustainable development or healthy communities interest you, and especially if you also work in the nonprofit or for-profit arenas for these causes, buy and read this book, and buy another and pass it on.

I'm a UNLV Landscape architect student (4th yr) and this book has been used as one of the text books for two classes so far, design studio, and urban land use. The concepts all relate to sustaining our planets resources and lowering our urban footprint. It presents the concepts from historical, present and future view. It has many illustrations,and is a terrific reference book.

Doug Farr shows a comprehensive understanding of sustainability rarely seen in this movement. Too often different professions work on greening their product in isolation. While they may be doing wonderful designs they are not linking with other elements and professions to make these improvements complimentary and exponential. A LEED Platinum building built on farm land miles from the city center is not a comprehensive solution (and should really not be able to get a platinum rating.) Mr. Farr shows how to create an integrated approach to building where the "green" structure is consciously tied into the communities' transportation, utilities, culture, and work life creating a truly sustainable environment. Every public official and city planner should read this book.

this is an excellent book. It's current, relevant and the author includes tons of useful infomration along with interesting and meaningful graphics to break up the monotony and illustrate his points.

Having known Doug Farr, author of Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature through participation in his LEED ND sessions at Congress for the New Urbanism congresses for 4-5 years, having followed him via the LEED ND Correspondence Committee, I thought I knew much of what Farr had to offer. Make no mistake, I considered him a thought leader. I helped to found a Sustainable Urbanism Ratings Group in Portland, Oregon to help Farr improve LEED ND. I have espoused the 2030 Communities Campaign he founded both within CNU and in the larger world for the last two years now.

But it took hearing that there was a Biophilia chapter for me to push my local library to buy this rather expensive book. After all, I have been prompting CNU designers to design utilizing ecosystem services for the 6-7 years that I have been active in CNU. I needed to see who my soul mates are and connect with them.

Sustainable Urbanism integrated many threads that were sometimes divergent or confusing for me. It gave me a better historical perspective and showed me where we are in a continuum. As an underemployed planner, it gave me the assurance I need to believe that my skills will be needed well into the future. It gave me a wealth of sound bites and quotes that I will use in my blog articles, public testimonies and other advocacy for progressive policy. It reinvigorated the boldness that comes with certainty and reinforced my commitment to sustainable urbanism.

To begin with the basics, there were four parts to the book:

* The Case for Sustainable Urbanism
* Implementing Sustainable Urbanism
* Emerging Thresholds of Sustainable Urbanism
* Case Studies in Sustainable Urbanism

It was Farr's own writing in Part One--and in a smattering of the headings in Parts Two and Three--that I found most insightful, most pithy and perhaps most controversial within New Urbanism. For example, in Chapter 2 (p. 49) he states In order to strengthen human interdependence with natural systems, sustainable urbanism believes that human settlements need to be designed to make resource flows visible and experiential. . . Sustainable urbanism embraces the interweaving of riparian and wildlife corridors between and through neighborhoods. In Chapter 8 (p. 169) he states Filtering stormwater, even in high-density urban locations, is an important aim of sustainable urbanism.

I loved Farr's moments of unexpected optimism about the immense task ahead of turning around America's development pattern. For example, he writes regarding Gen X (p. 53)

As taxpaying voters presented with a bill for the full cost of the gloomy consequences of the prior generation's wrong course on the built environment, they are also likely to embrace urbanism. . . .Given that this same pattern of land use that is cooking the planet is also contributing to the obesity epidemic, land-wasting low-density development, social isolation, heightened levels of pollution, higher taxes, and a shortened lifespan, it is hard to imagine that sustainable urbanism will not come to occupy the center of Gen X policy and governance.

After railing against land use laws that make LEED ND and sustainable urbanism illegal in many places, he offers this opinion (p. 59):

In light of the well-documented links between sprawl and the potential for shortened life spans, obesity, and accelerated threats to the Earth, a comprehensive plan that enables sprawl should, in the near future, run afoul of the law. With a growing awareness of how auto-dependent land use can be hostile to human well-being, in just a few years sustainable urbanist plans may be the law of the land.

For me there were a couple of irritating aspects to the book as well. While the lovely green color used throughout the book was aesthetically pleasing, when used in 6pt font, the light color made it difficult for me to read the timelines and sidebars interspersed through each chapter. I also felt that many of the subchapters were too short to be satisfying. Farr Associates own diagram on The Sustainable Corridor at the beginning of Chapter 6 Sustainable Corridors is crammed into a single page (p. 113) while the page next to it is mostly blank except for a chapter title--with adherence to style trumping readability. And in Chapter 9, The 2030 Community Challenge: Economic Growth with Sustainable Urbanism p. 204 Farr says nothing about the economic growth one might anticipate from the title!

I found the chapter on Biophilia to be missing something--though it was partially offset by the subchapter on Biodiversity Corridors in Chapter 6. But even that piece assumed that designers reading this book know the difference between using diverse native plant species and alien ornamentals to create a habitat patch. For the most part they don't.

Despite my minor complaints, I would give this book five stars and recommend it highly to others in professions involving the built environment as well as community activists seeking to adapt their communities for climate change and peak oil. After all, as Farr says in his Epilogue (p. 296) Sustainable urbanism, against enormous odds, requires the improbable: that the base of the pyramid--millions of us--"get it" and act in concert. . . What this book calls for is something that no one person can effect--a change in our political culture.

I am encouraged that the base of the pyramid may be waking up by reading that the citizens of Beaerton, OR are calling for a vibrant downtown to be created out of the sprawled array of car sales lots and disjointed strip commercial. "The City is looking for a consultant with international experience and acclaim in order to bring a cachet previously unseen in Beaverton that will excite the community to the possibilities of what the City may become in the future."

Chicago City Planning Consultant Doug Farr has written a great book, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature.

Farr combines new urbanism with green development in a clear and logical manner. He believes that "sustainable urbanism" is more than designing new Leed certified green buildings. It also includes the creation of green sustainable neighborhoods, and includes plans for sustainable urban development. He combines the strategies and principles of new urbanism with environmental improvements very well.

Farr explains the evolution of the design reform movement. He outlines strategies on how to lead and promote sustainable urbanism.

Doug Farr did an outstanding on form based codes for our neighboring communities of Bloomington and Normal, Illinois, and in developing plans that enhanced the environment while creating new urban space. I strongly recommend this book.

Craig Hullinger AICP City of Peoria, Director, Economic Development

This book is a well-done and detailed guide on how to make new communities pedestrian-friendly while reducing energy consumption- in other words, a combination of new urbanism and environmentalism. What makes this book unusual is that Farr sets out quantitative criteria that architects and planners can use in creating and evaluating projects. The downside of this high level of detail is that the book is sufficiently technical that (unlike, say, Andres Duany's Suburban Nation) it is not for the casual reader; much of Farr's analysis will be over the head of even a fairly educated layperson.

I do think the first few chapters (which focus on why urbanism and environmentalism are important) could have used some pruning. Although one list of talking points suggests that "emphasizing the positive may attract more people than gloom and doom", Farr occasionally lapses into the kind of alarmist rhetoric that may be inspiring to the most committed environmentalists, but may be offputting to other readers.

I was a bit put off that Mr. Farr would subtitle his book after Ian McHargh's Design With Nature and then proceed to launch an attack on McHargh's book and built work. This attack was baseless and misrepresented McHargh's text. It seems to me then rather than acknowledging that "New Urbanism" is no more than the capitalist manifestation of an idea that McHargh had years ago, they attempt to rewrite history and downplay the fact that McHargh invented the very foundation of what they base their "new" theories. Quite simply, determining where to build and where not to build is the essence of "green" design. Suggesting that McHargh did not consider "society" is ridiculous and belies a lack of a basic understanding not only of his work but of ecology. Ecology deals with interaction: man is part of nature, and our intellect, values, and use of the planet are not and can never be outside of the planet itself. It seems as though the New Urbanists and still do not get that basic tenant of ecological design.

Through their blatant hubris and jealousy, it is fitting that New Urbanists should steal the title and then openly attack McHargh because it mirrors what they are doing to his work. Ignorance, hypocrisy and revisionist interpretation does not a "new" idea make.