Neighborhood

Neighborhood should hold particular appeal to urban historians. It...helpfully puts [this ideal] into a historical perspective. * David J. Goodwin, Fordham University, The Metropole *
Few concepts match the expansive influence the idea of neighborhood cast over the field of urban planning that expanded rapidly in the 20th century. A sizable literature exists describing the origin, development, and myriad implications of employing the neighborhood concept over the last hundred or so years. However, planning scholars and practitioners need an updated, comprehensive text exploring the idea's relevance for contemporary times. Emily Talen's intellectually ambitious and sophisticated project successfully fills this gap. Clearly, the key contribution of this book lies in advancing the crucial proposition that the idea of neighborhood remains relevant for progressive planning efforts seeking to improve the quality of contemporary city life, especially given the wide range of sociospatially fragmented places characterizing an increasingly urbanized world. * Sanjeev Vidyarthi, Journal of the American Planning Association *
The neighborhood is central to urban life, but has not yet received the scholarly depth represented in this book. Professor Talen recognizes that although the neighborhood may be elusive in its definition, its existence is central to ongoing efforts to renew the city and urban life in fundamental ways. * Howard Davis, author of The Culture of Building, Living Over the Store: Architecture and Local Urban Life, and the forthcoming Working Cities: Architecture, Place and Production *
Neighborhood is an admirably exhaustive account of the planning debate over neighborhood during the twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. It cites an impressively wide range of scholarly articles and books and discusses the various positions of planners and social scientists. * Professor Jon C. Teaford, author of City and Suburb: The Political Fragmentation of Metropolitan America, 1850-1970 *
Everyone loves neighborhoods, but few of us get to live in places that genuinely combine human scale, walkability, sociability, and diversity. Emily Talen brings deep scholarship to the task of analyzing the century-long struggle by planners to understand and to design neighborhoods. More importantly, she brings her own unique sense of hope. Her past is a prologue to a new era of neighborhood planning that will build on and transform older ideals and make real neighborhoods an integral part of the 21st-century city. * Robert Fishman, Taubman College of Architecture and Planning, University of Michigan *