Discover the City is intended to be a guided tour of the elements that create our built environment. Buildings, transportation, and parks create many of the physical elements that we interact with and experience every day. They make up the buildings we work, live, and entertain ourselves in and they are the transportation systems that provide us access and opportunity to wealth of resources that our built environment provides. The people, communities, and economic forces can shape how we experience these elements by creating connections and determining the opportunities that are available to us. Where we live and how we engage with the built environment is one of the most important aspects of our lives.
Discover the City provides a comprehensive analysis of the elements that create the places we live, work, and entertain. This includes the physical elements but also how they shape our experiences, particularly through the lens of equity. The book is also designed to study the experiential quality of our built environment and how that quality can be different from our suburbs to the heart of our major cities.
Bradley Calvert is a planning and urban design professional, and lecturer at California State University - Northridge. Having worked in multiple cities across the United States, including Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Boston he provides a perspective of the many different types of cities and urban forms that define where we live and how we experience the built environment. Using this experience, this textbook seeks to define the experiential qualities of the urban environment, the consequences of our suburban sprawl, and the many factors that have shaped, formed, and engineered how and where we live. He has led planning initiatives to create new urban communities and transformative public spaces and transportation options, winning awards and competitions from the American Planning Association, United States Green Building Council, and Georgia Transit Association. Bradley has a Master of City and Regional Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Chapter 1 - Discover the City
Chapter 2 - History of Cities
Chapter 3 - Critical Thinkers and Planner Theories
Chapter 4 - Building Design and Framing the Urban Context
Chapter 5 - Transportation Systems
Chapter 6 - The Public Realm: The Role of Open Space, Sidewalks, and streets as the Public Living Room
Chapter 7 - Suburban Expansion
Chapter 8 - How We Live and How It Impacts the Environment
Chapter 9 - Public Health: How the Way We Live Impacts Our Physical and Mental Health
Chapter 10 - Economic and Social Capital
Chapter 11 - Equity
Chapter 12 - Return to the City: Revitalization and Urban Growth
Chapter 13 - Future of Suburban Development