About this item
Can planners—or anyone—improve a neighborhood, city, suburb, or region? Planning does work: this book explains how. The Planning Game: Lessons from Great Cities provides a focused, thorough, and sophisticated overview of how planning works, generously illustrated with 200 colorful photographs, diagrams, and maps created expressly for the book. It presents the public realm approach to planning—an approach that emphasizes the importance of public investments in what we own: streets, squares, parks, infrastructure, and public buildings. They are the fundamental elements in any community and are the way to determine our future. The book covers planning at every level, explaining the activities that go into successfully transforming a community as exemplified by four cities and their colorful motive forces: Paris (Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann), New York (Robert Moses), Chicago (Daniel Burnham), and Philadelphia (Edmund Bacon).
About the Author
Alexander Garvin has combined a career in urban planning and real estate with teaching, architecture, and public service. He is currently President and CEO of AGA Public Realm Strategists, Inc., a planning and design firm in New York City that is responsible for initial master plans for the Atlanta BeltLine; Tessera (a 700-acre new community outside Austin) ; and Hinton Park in Collierville, Tennessee. Between 1996 and 2005 he was managing director for planning at NYC2012, the committee established to bring the Summer Olympics to New York in 2012. During 2002-2003, as Vice President for Planning, Design and Development, he was responsible for planning the rebuilding of the World Trade Center for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Over the last 48 years he has held prominent positions in five New York City administrations, including Deputy Commissioner of Housing and City Planning Commissioner.Garvin has won numerous awards, including the Municipal Art Society 's New York City Masterwork Award for Best Planning and Urban Design, the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter Merit Award, and the American Planning Association New York City Chapter, Distinguished Service Award.In addition to his professional work, for the past 52 years Garvin has taught at Yale University, his alma mater, where, as Adjunct Professor of Urban Planning and Management, he has taught a wide range of courses in architecture, city planning, and real estate development. Garvin has also taught workshops on basic real estate development for the Urban Land Institute. Garvin is the author of The American City: What Works and What Doesn't, now in its third edition; The Planning Game; Public Parks: The Key to Livable Communities; What Makes a Great City; and his newest book published May 2019 by Island Press The Heart of the City: Creating Vibrant Downtown for a New Century.
