The Urban Oasis: Guideways and Greenways in the Human Environment [Hardcover]

Roxanne Warren (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 007068331X | ISBN-13: 978-0070683310 | Publication Date: August 1, 1997 | Edition: 1

Decentralization and the flight to the suburbs have drained the economic and cultural life out of many urban communities, while driving our consumption of land and fuel to new heights. But the option of conventional planning for higher densities raises the specter of concrete landscapes filled with cars. The Urban Oasis would contrast with this image. In this thoughtful and insightful book, architect Roxanne Warren makes a compelling case for the benefits of relatively high-density, but abundantly landscaped, mixed-use, walkable new "development clusters" - as traffic-calmed or pedestrian zones. To allow sufficient land for a green living environment, car parking would be located peripherally, and automated people movers would provide around-the-clock, readily available links to regional transit networks. Whether built on rehabilitated urban land, or threaded through land on former commercial strips, such human-scale communities would combine the sociabilities of urban living with fresh air and greenery, and would aim to resolve many of the intertwined population/congestion/environmental pressures of our time. The book is packed with case studies of existing pedestrian zones in Europe and the U.S. It also contains clear and illuminating descriptions of automated people mover technologies, and in doing so, bridges the gap between humanist and technological concerns.

Editorial Reviews

Review

.....it is the only lucid and realistic planning book on automated transit issues I have ever seen. -- Thomas J. McGean - chair of the Automated People Mover Committee of the ASCE

...It is the only lucid and realistic planning book on automated transit issues I have ever seen.... -- Thomas McGean, specialist in innovative transportation systems and chairman of the Automated Peoplemover Committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers

I've enjoyed your book The Urban Oasis.....best wishes, sharing interest in the subject. -- Moshe Safdie - architect

From the Back Cover

Can urban places once again be savored? The automobile allows us to scatter our urban development over the landscape on an unprecedented scale. With decentralization, we drain the economic and cultural life out of our cities. We also consume more virgin land and fuel in transportation than ever before in human history-while contributing far more than our share to global warming. At the same time, world population pressures are relentlessly increasing. The confluence of population growth and the car culture, notes architect Roxanne Warren, presages massive degradation of the environment of humans and other living creatures. The Urban Oasis is a thoughtful, brilliant book that demonstrates way we can begin to free ourselves from our dangerous dependence on private motoring, and to create truly livable communities into the future. In describing the components of the Oasis, Warren dreaws on numerous examples of pedestrian zones in europe, North American, and Asia, and of new automated guideway transit links that are functioning worldwide. By allowing efficient access to off-site parking, such links will permit the provision of locally green environments, and thus the melding of the advantages of urban and rural living. The author bridges the barriers that have typically existed between the humanist and technical realms, placing new transportation technologies with the context of ecological and social concerns and priorities. The technical material is kept accessible to the lay reader, yet enlightning for architects and planner. It is the interweaving of these realities and potential solutions that is the unique contribution of this book.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 1 edition (August 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007068331X
• ISBN-13: 978-0070683310
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,142,338 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent exposition of a timely subject., June 27, 1998

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[e-mail] (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Urban Oasis: Guideways and Greenways in the Human Environment (Hardcover)

This book is an easy read. It covers technical subjects succinctly with easily understood definitions, descriptions and diagrams. It starts with a statement of how today's urban/suburban situation arose and moves into very practical approaches to dealing with the problems. Ms. Warren's work comes across as one of a level headed, experienced urban architect with a lucid point of view. She is clearly an important heir to the Jane Jacobs legacy and extends the urgency to deal with the situation to a new generation of students.