Introduction

A house I once lived in came with a potted grape ivy. I watered the plant regularly, but oddly, it never grew. It didn't die, but during the two years I lived there, it never changed shape or sprouted a leaf. Leaving this grape ivy behind for the next inhabitants, it became emblematic for me of so many places that, while they may be surviving, are clearly not thriving.

For most of human history, we built habitats that supported us more than they challenged us. As industrialization began shifting the scale and logic of urbanization, however, we veered off course and became the only species to build habitats that are not sustainable. Over the last several decades, we have been making concerted efforts to get back on course and construct places that support humanity more optimally, places that sustain us rather than strain us.

Thanks to these efforts, there is now a virtual consensus among planners and urban designers about what constitutes good urbanism. This consensus holds that networks of quality public spaces should be lined with and punctuated by vital hubs of activity. Stated inversely, urban regions should be comprised of mixed-use cores (large hubs and smaller nodes) connected by corridors of transit, automobile, and bicycle routes as well as other quality public spaces to ensure walkability. These public spaces include outdoor places—for circulation, recreation, and preservation of natural landscapes—as well as indoor cultural institutions and gathering places. Good urbanism honors the past by preserving historic fabrics and adaptively reusing existing structures. It also honors the future by celebrating creativity through supporting new and innovative architecture, public art, and entrepreneurship at all scales. Good urbanism offers a full spectrum of housing options, accommodating a wide range of household types and income levels, comprising a diverse community that is actively engaged in shaping and managing its future.

Key to good urbanism is the connective tissue: infrastructure, public space, and community engagement. Whether retrofitted or new, for practical purposes or pleasure, infrastructure is integrated with public spaces and both are multipurpose, technologically advanced, attractive, and harmonious with natural and cultural settings. Community building and engagement occur spontaneously in the quality public space as well as more deliberatively through interesting and fun initiatives sponsored by municipal organizations, community groups, or businesses. In sum, good urbanism is vital, vibrant, safe, comfortable, legible, accessible, equitable, efficient, elegant, convenient, walkable, sustainable, beautiful, distinctive, and dynamic.

While there are numerous iterations with a range of foci, most recommendations converge on these principles. Along with this knowledge of the component parts of good urbanism, we also have the will, the tools, and the resources to achieve these desired ends. Nevertheless, their actual delivery remains challenging and all too rare. Good urbanism still eludes in far too many instances; hence the continued proliferation of prescriptions for healing ailing places.

We know where we want to go, but cannot reliably get there. Why not? With the intensified division of labor regarding the built environment over the last century, it can be difficult to identify the sources of dissatisfaction with our places and thereby address them. For example, in search of authenticity and identity, jurisdictions and institutions sometimes turn to branders, usually from another city or even another country, who ironically tend to stamp similar marks of "identity" (brands) wherever they go. In search of distinction and status, "starchitects" may be commissioned who typically have priorities other than serving the greater good. In search of vitality, made-to-order "lifestyle centers" are dropped onto greenfield sites. Stakeholder meetings are convened to obtain buy-in, rather than feedback. And so on.

Having lost our compass, the quest to improve places for all people is too often estranged from the places and communities themselves. Consequently, an untold number of excellent proposals are never realized or unfortunately compromised, while many suboptimal ones are implemented. As a result, valuable resources (human, economic, political, and environmental) are squandered as our towns, cities, and regions suffer the consequences.

We have, to some extent, buried our instinctual capacity to create habitats that support us most fully, places where we may thrive. This book asks what exactly has been lost and describes a path for uncovering this buried urban instinct, dusting it off, and updating it to serve us today.

Anyone can walk this path, professionals in the field of urbanism—planners, urban designers, architects, or landscape architects—and others alike. The only precondition for stepping onto the path is a willingness to let it take us someplace we've never been before. In other words, a prerequisite for good urbanism is knowing what (or that) we don't know. The job of the professional urbanist includes directing people toward the path and providing some assistance along the way.

The next chapter, "Urban Desiderata" (chapter 2), clears the way toward this new territory by describing six steps along the path to better places. Chapter 3, "The Tao of Urbanism," explains how this path renders the latent manifest and the possible inevitable by building on personal and collective assets to build on the strengths of places. The fourth chapter, "Co-Creation," delves more deeply into collective and place prospecting. "Going with the Flow" (chapter 5) describes how to polish the gemstones mined during personal, collective, and place prospecting and how to craft transformative place proposals through urban acupuncture, the five qualities of integral urbanism, and learning from ecosystems.

Chapter 6, "The Art of Urbanism," offers a handy guide for following the six steps along the path, as well as recommendations for effectively communicating place proposals and recovering our urban instinct. The seventh chapter, "From Good to Great Urbanism," limns the contours of an emergent paradigm, moving beyond sustainability to prosperity. "Sideways Urbanism" (chapter 8) demonstrates how this new paradigm operates in a way that is neither top-down nor bottom-up, but sideways. The concluding section (chapter 9) provides an overview of...