July 26, 2008
The Option of Urbanism: Investing In a New American Dream
Gulf Coast Growth News

In his new book, The Option of Urbanism, real estate developer, consultant, professor, and Brookings Fellow Christopher Leinberger says “the United States faces a conundrum in how to grow and provide a high quality of life that is sustainable. Walkable urbanism is a crucial part of the answer.”

Tracing the history and consequences of drivable suburbanism in the US, Leinberger explains how this “social experiment” aligned itself with the primary economic industries of the day and became virtually the only option for new development in the latter half of the 20th century. Recently, however, the real estate market pendulum has begun to swing back, says Leinberger, and changes in demographics, consumer preference, and awareness of the negative outcomes of a single, automobile-reliant development pattern have created a “pent-up” demand for more lifestyle options - particularly more walkable urbanism - from our built environments.

Why and how this “profound” shift in the American Dream, despite legal, financial and other obstacles, is happening, and how we can benefit economically, socially, physically, and even morally from financial and domestic policy reform that allows walkable urbanism to compete on a “level playing field” with other development options are topics explored by Leinberger in detail. He also discusses some of the unintended negative consequences of walkable urbanism, and possible mitigative measures.

“The next American Dream is based upon the recognition that the market wants a built environment that provides choice, lines up with the new economy that is emerging and is more environmentally, fiscally, and economically sustainable.” To attain these goals, major changes to the built environment are necessary, says Leinberger, and they are coming.

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February 2008 Issue
Dreaming of a New America
Planning Magazine
by Harold Henderson

Reprinted with permission from the February 2008 issue of Planning magazine, copyright 2008 by the American Planning Association.

Developer and professor Christopher B. Leinberger, now at the University of Michigan and the Brookings Institution, has written the book to give to colleagues, constituents, and public officials who don’t quite get what’s going on in American cities and suburbs. The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream (2007; Island Press; 224 pp.; $25.95) is free of jargon and, more important, free of ideological resentments.

Leinberger divides U.S. building into two categories: pre-World War II and after. Before, we had “walkable urbanism.” Since then, most of our development has been in the form of “drivable sub-urbanism,” which he sees as a “bold and large-scale social experiment”—“not some nefarious conspiracy.” Now the pendulum is swinging back to somewhere in the middle.

Within this framework, he expounds on the historical details, the 19 kinds of drivable sub-urbanism (from luxury housing to self storage), the five kinds of walkable urbanism (traditional downtown, downtown-adjacent, suburban town, greenfield town, and redeveloped regional and strip malls), and the unintended consequences of both forms of development. 

The biggest unintended consequence of walkable urbanism, writes Leinberger, is that it’s rarely affordable, largely due to the slow response to changing demand. According to one study, “Thirty to forty percent of households in the surveyed metropolitan areas want to live in walkable urban places, yet only five to twenty percent of the housing supply would be considered walkable in most regions.”

The final chapter summarizes what needs to be done: making walkable urbanism legal, educating the financial community, ending subsidies for drivable sub-urbanism, investing in rail transit, and “intensively managing walkable urban districts to ensure that the needed complexity actually happens on the ground.”

Harold Henderson

Henderson is the book reviewer for Planning magazine.

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February 2008 Issue
Review: The Walkability Revival
Governing Magazine
by Alan Ehrenhalt

Will more people who can afford suburban privacy be attracted to the noise and bustle of the urban street?

The late geographer John B. Jackson, in lectures he gave on life in cities around the world, would talk in vivid detail about where to find the best urban walking. He'd cite Naples, Barcelona, Istanbul — cities where on a warm summer evening, the entire population seemed to be out in the street: strolling, gossiping, indulging in the simple habits of old-fashioned pedestrian life.

And then he'd throw the audience a curve. "You know why those people are out there?" he would ask. "Because it's hot and crowded and uncomfortable inside. They go into the street for relief." Jackson believed that whenever housing conditions improve, almost anywhere in the world, with more family space and controllable temperatures inside — vibrant street life begins to decline.

Jackson wasn't happy to see people move indoors. He loved street life, and he loved walking. But he felt there was no way to escape a central truth: As much as people may romanticize the virtues of an urban life lived in the streets — even seek it out on vacations — they don't choose it when they have an option.

It's hard to argue with that as a description of life in this country in the last quarter of the 20th century. But is it an immutable principle or just a phase in the evolution of Western society? Is it possible that, in the current century, significant numbers of people who can afford suburban privacy will be attracted to the noise and bustle of the urban street?

Well, not in the old-fashioned way, no. Memphis is not going to morph into Old Istanbul anytime soon. People in this country will never go back to spending large portions of their leisure time rambling aimlessly outdoors. But if you ask the question a slightly different way — Will many more of us be drawn toward a style of life that involves some form of walkable daily routine? — then I think you get a different answer. You begin to suspect that demographics and personal preferences are reshaping the American city toward street life and sociability in ways nobody would have expected even a short time ago.

Admittedly, there is room for skepticism. New Urbanist planners and theorists have spent the past decade preaching the virtues of pedestrian friendliness, neo-traditional development, and higher levels of urban density overall. In spite of their preaching, cul-de-sac suburbia has spread further into the countryside in every metropolitan area of the country. In most of them, it continues to do so.

But in the past year or two, it seems to me, something has changed. It's not just the New Urbanists who are talking the language of walkability now. It's developers, Realtors, chambers of commerce, transportation agencies. Market forces are sending signals that none of them can afford to ignore.

Where should we start? How about in lower Manhattan, around Wall Street and the territory near Ground Zero, on an ordinary Saturday morning. It's not the number of people on the sidewalk that's striking; this part of New York is bound to attract tourists. It's the number of children's strollers. The lower Manhattan streets are dense on weekends with families out for a walk, going to the park, going to the grocery store. It's not Istanbul, but you can't help noticing it. Watching it all, you'd almost think that lower Manhattan was becoming a residential neighborhood.

In fact, that's what it IS becoming. In the six years since September 11, 2001, this area of Manhattan has witnessed a massive increase in the number of new residential units, some of them from office-building conversion, some from the construction of brand-new glass towers. It has happened so fast that it's hard even to get a grip on the numbers. But one estimate is that the number of people living south of the World Trade Center was about 15,000 in 2001, and that it is close to 50,000 now. At the current pace, it's not unreasonable to predict that in 2015, the bottom of Manhattan will essentially be a condo and apartment district with a modest residual presence of financial corporations where some of the residents are employed.

That may not happen. Extrapolating is always dangerous. What really matters is that events like this are starting to transpire, in different ways, in many cities around the country. Atlanta is one of the most intriguing examples. It is not the place it was a few years ago, with a stagnant center surrounded by vibrant, auto-dependent suburban enclaves. Most of the suburbs are still doing all right, but it's the city itself, especially the area around Midtown, that is being transformed by residential construction. The trigger was Atlantic Station, a massive $2 billion mixed-use development on an old steel mill site surrounding a transit station that opened in 2005 and will eventually house more than 10,000 people.

In the Dallas area, one of the most interesting new residential projects is Legacy Town Center, an urbanist experiment whose promoters tell prospective residents that "the beat of the city surrounds you. You're in the know, everything is close at hand. You can walk, skate, or bike and find everything you need." The interesting thing about Legacy Center is that it's not in the city at all. It's in the suburb of Plano, 15 miles from downtown. The management has sold buyers on the notion of walkability in a place where hardly anyone has walked anywhere by choice for the past two decades.

Legacy Center isn't working out by coincidence: It's working out because it's located a few steps from the Plano rail station near the end of the Red Line on the Dallas transit system. And that brings up an interesting point about the whole resurgence of walkability. It's closely intertwined with transit, even in places where transit has never been a popular mode of transportation. Urban transit systems in this country face so many problems, both financial and political, that it's easy to lose sight of just how many new ones are being built, especially in areas of the South and West, such as Dallas, Phoenix and Denver.

Since 2000, Christopher Leinberger notes in his new book, "The Option of Urbanism," more than $100 billion has been invested around the country in transit systems of many different sorts. When major transit projects have gone to the voters for approval, more than two-thirds of them have passed. Leinberger, a developer who teaches real estate at the University of Michigan, may be the boldest prophet of walkability anywhere. "The United States," he writes, "is on the verge of a new phase in constructing its built environment."

One may be forgiven for considering him a trifle hyperbolic. But he offers numbers, not just stories, to back up his point of view. He compares prices for comparable residential units in what he calls "walkable urban places" and "drivable suburbs" in the same metropolitan area. According to his figures, townhouses in the Lodo section of downtown Denver were recently selling for $487 per square foot. A conventional detached suburban house in Highland Ranch, a few miles outside of town, was costing $195 per square foot. The same ratio, more or less, existed wherever he looked.

The problem for walkable urbanism in the next few years, Leinberger says, won't be an absence of demand. It will be a shortage of supply. "The demand is so great," he insists, "that we are going to have a difficult time keeping up with it."
Leinberger believes that supply will be slowed down by two fundamental factors. One is zoning: Most urban zoning codes, even in cities where there is a demonstrated demand for walkability, still do not allow the degree of density that the most enticing forms of sidewalk sociability would require. Some of this has been addressed through "overlays" — smaller pedestrian-oriented enclaves within larger conventionally zoned districts — but there's little doubt that zoning has to be addressed in a more fundamental way if the walkability revival is to reach its full potential.

The other obstacle, Leinberger believes, is lending. In his view, Wall Street banks and other major institutional investors remain wary of walkable projects. These developments lack the uniformity lenders like, and they take longer to earn back the investment. This attitude may prevail, but I don't think it will prevail for long. Even banks are smart enough to respond to demand.

Just last year, as Leinberger notes, Toll Brothers, the country's largest developer of suburban luxury housing, formally created a "Walkable Urban Housing" division. Less conspicuous, but just as interesting, was the launch a few months ago of walkscore.com, a Web site that allows anyone to type in any address in the U.S. and come out with a number assessing just how walkable that location is, based on the proximity of stores, restaurants, parks and other urban amenities. What's intriguing about walkscore.com isn't just the hits it's getting — it's the audience it's aimed at. Walkscore is a tool for Realtors to use in persuading potential buyers that a house has the financial advantages of a walkable location.

One could write millions of words offering reasons why urban walkability is finally close to the tipping point: high energy costs, reduced crime, aging baby boomers, the evolving preferences of Generations Y and Z. All of these contain a measure of truth. What matters in the end, though, isn't so much the sociological explanation. It's the fact that tens of millions of Americans are being given choices about where and how to live that they haven't possessed in the past generation. I can't imagine anyone arguing that isn't a welcome thing.

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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Review: Leinberger's The Option of Urbanism
Goodspeedupdate.com
by Rob Goodspeed

Reviewing some of the best known books about urban topics by American authors is something like walking through an intellectual house of mirrors: each author’s view is strangely distorted, making it hard to discern the objective reality discussed.

Some are critics, crafting harsh polemics against our Suburban Nation, decrying our Geography of Nowhere, or providing us a Field Guide to (our) Sprawl. Historians want to help us uncover the Origins of the Urban Crisis, but are only now beginning to write a New Suburban History. Some are one-dimensionally obsessed with one topic, describing the High Cost of Free Parking or How to Build an Urban Village. Still more are modern day utopians, sketching bold visions of the Sustainable Urbanism the future could (or should) hold.

Perhaps that’s why when a friend asked me to recommend a good book to introduce her to the field or urban development I struggled to come up with a title to suggest: It’s a rare book indeed that displays a sophisticated understanding of the forces that shape our cities in an engaging and accessible way.

This is the primary strength of Christopher B. Leinberger’s new book The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream. A readable synthesis of history, planning, and real estate, the book is not yet another polemic about How We Should Live, but an informed and realistic argument about future growth and what choices we face along the way. A visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Leinberger is also a developer in his own right and Director of an academic program in real estate at the University of Michigan. Recently he has stirred debate in Washington by suggesting the city should re-visit its height limits on buildings.

The past sixty years in American history, Leinberger argues, has been a break from the past 5,500 years of human city building. Equipped with a vision of a “drivable sub-urban” (as he insists on calling it) American Dream, a booming economy, and a powerful auto industry, Americans created the low-density auto-dependent city we know so well. His terse re-telling of the criticisms of this sprawling type of development (Chapter 4) could no doubt be criticized for including or excluding some reason or another, but is impressive for its clarity. This section’s description of the financial forces driving recent growth was perhaps the most unusual. He argues the real estate industry’s overheated growth of the 1980s caused the Savings and Loan crisis, arguing the crisis was “the defining moment of the past half century for the U.S. real estate industry.” He describes how Wall Street subsequently stepped in to provide loans to the industry through Real Estate Investment Trusts, and how the forces of global capital encouraged the commodification of real estate into nineteen generally single-use “product types,” categories like the “neighborhood retail center,” “urban high density apartments” or “move-up housing,” generally developed at low quality for short-term returns.

The remainder of the book contains a typology of the alternative, what he dubs “walkable urbanism” (like Ballston, Virginia, to the right), a discussion of some of its consequences (housing affordability and corporate chains are discussed), and the five steps he thinks are needed for the full emergence for this, “next American Dream.” The steps described are: new zoning, changes to real estate finance, ending subsidies favoring sprawl, investing in (mostly rail transit) infrastructure, and good management of the new urban districts.

While Leinberger’s views would fit well with advocates of both Smart Growth and New Urbanism, he skips a strong affiliation with either of these groups, opting instead for his own nomenclature. Most of all Leinberger is a realist. His blunt assessment of the income inequality of American cities remind me of Bill Rankin’s provocative 2006 City Income maps, that seem to offer a visual proof to Leinberger’s description of the “favored quarter” where investment and wealth is concentrated. He sees the coming trend of walkable urbanism independent from the inequality and segregation in our cities, and even not necessarily tied to increased use of transit (which he’d prefer). This frank grounding of his argument in actual places (Washington, D.C. is featured prominently) and first-hand knowledge of the real estate industry’s inner workings helps relate the general concepts of walkable urbanism into a concrete understanding of what’s built and why.

Leinberger’s book offers the novice a readable introduction to some of the debate surrounding the American city, and the veteran a lively respite from the house of mirrors. With well-selected references that provide a good jumping-off point for further reading, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the book to my students or friends looking for a fresh take on the form and future of our cities.

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Sunday, December 9, 2007
Review: The Option of Urbanism
Worldchanging.com
by Alex Steffen

I'm in Barcelona, where I delivered a talk on sustainability and the future for the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona's remarkable NOW series, and where Erica and I have stayed on for a working vacation.

Barcelona, people here will tell you, is not only the most vital and stylish city in Spain, but the densest city in Europe. Though I've heard this factoid disputed by people who aren't from here, the fact remains that Barcelona is extremely dense: to wander through much of Barcelona is to walk through mile after mile of narrow streets embraced by beautiful old buildings, fronted by small shops.

But to hang out in Barcelona is also to taste a from of urban livability almost unknown in North America. The locals complain of the nuisances, pollution and cost of living (and it is both dirty and expensive)... while they sit for long hours in some of the best cafes and bars in Europe, eating some of the best food in the world, and surrounded by a city designed to make the street a second living room.

If, as I believe, building much denser cities is the lynchpin to any realistic strategy for building a bright green future, we'll need to learn the lessons Barcelona has to teach, and figure out how to make compact communities more vibrant and fulfilling places to live than the suburban alternative.

Because doing this in North America is no easy trick, I'm eagerly awaiting my review copy of Christopher B. Leinberger's The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, which my urban development friends say is kicking up real buzz. The basic message: we have already entered an age when the market for walkable urbanism has grown larger than the market for drivable suburbanism, and the main challenge now is building enough compact communities, well enough, fast enough.

You can hear an interview with Leinberger on Carol Coletta's awesome Smart City radio show here.

Here is one of the questions with which I'm struggling: if the unintended consequences of suburban sprawl include auto dependence, social stratification, obesity, loss of farmland and climate change, what might the unintended consequences be of a massive shift towards walkable communities? Gentrification, of course, stands out, but what else might we try to foresee?

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Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Review: Gen-Xers Leading the Way in Developing Walkable Urban Plac
The Ground Floor
by Robert Krueger

This week, Christopher Leinberger, visiting fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., held a luncheon to discuss his recently published book, The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream, at the National Press Club in Washington. The focus of his book is based on his market findings from across the country pointing to the increased market demand for walkable urbanism -- living, working and entertainment within a pedestrian environment provided by downtowns and similar places in American metropolitan areas. Leinberger discussed how the redevelopment plays out on the ground, the steps that need to be taken to encourage redevelopment, the role of transit, "private/public" financing options and the new management models evolving to keep up with the growing consumer demands.

As part of the discussion, Leinberger included a new list of 30 metropolitan areas ranked by the number of walkable places per capita throughout the areas – not just in the downtown cores. The Washington, D.C., metro area ranked first; the Tampa-Clearwater-St. Petersburg (Fla.) area ranked last. One key finding: There is a balanced distribution of walkable places located in suburban areas and urban areas.

The unintended consequences of downtown redevelopment were also addressed. Leinberger focused mainly on the lack of affordable housing; however, he also noted that there is a problem in determining what to do with obsolete drivable sub-urban housing and commercial space.

In addressing the problems of greenhouse gases and combating global warming, Leinberger pointed to denser development as a solution. He pointed out that if the whole country lived in a walkable urban place, comparable to the people in Manhattan, we would cut our CO2 emissions by 50%.

Leinberger mentioned that in order for public policy to be adapted to achieve an urban walkable American landscape, there needs to be more investing in walkable urban infrastructure along with an increase in education/conferences from organizations such as the Urban Land Institute.

In his presentation, Leinberger stated that the reason for the new market demand for more urban walkable places can be attributed to Generation X. Leinberger claims that this generation grew up on shows like Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, and Sex in the City, where city living is seen as hip. In comparison, the Baby Boomers grew up with shows like Leave it to Beaver. Gen-Xers view living the walkable metropolitan life as trendy instead being previously viewed as "dirty" by generations past.

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Tuesday, December 4, 2007 Issue
Review: Is Urbanism the New American Dream?
PR Newswire

'Walkable Urban' Development Moving from Cities to Suburbs Top Ten Metro Areas for Best Walkable Urban Lifestyle Released Today

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Walkable urbanism is spreading beyond the boundaries of inner cities and into the suburbs as Gen Xers and empty nesters search for communities offering a walkable lifestyle, according to the book The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream released today.

Top 10 Metro Areas For Best Walkable Communities:

1. Washington, DC
2. Boston, MA
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Denver, CO
5. Portland, OR
6. Seattle, WA
7. Chicago, IL
8. Miami, FL
9. Pittsburgh, PA
10. New York, NY

Visit The Brookings Institution for rankings for 11-30 top metro areas for walkable urbanism

Also being released today by the Brookings Institution and visiting fellow and author Christopher B. Leinberger is a first-of-its-kind field survey which ranks the top ten metropolitan areas that offer the best places to live for those who want their homes a short walk from work, entertainment, schools, shops and restaurants.

Diverse walkable urban communities are popping up in and around major metropolitan areas like D.C., Denver, and even car-dominated cities like Los Angeles and Detroit.

This new trend is being driven by demand from Gen Xers, empty nesters, never nesters and singles looking for neighborhoods where cars are not absolutely essential-as opposed to what Leinberger refers to as "drivable sub- urban" developments characteristic of the American landscape since the 1950s.

"The 'Leave It To Beaver' drivable suburban vision of the American Dream is being supplemented by the 'Seinfeld' vision of walkable urbanism," stated Leinberger. "As demographic trends and consumer preferences take hold, the nearby suburbs of many major cities are changing to meet the pent up demand for this new way of life. The outer suburbs are also beginning to follow suit, through the development of so-called 'lifestyle centers.' The American Dream, as laid out on the ground, is changing."

Leinberger, working with his colleague Dr. Stephen Roulac, has also quantified, for the first time, the value of the built environment in the economy. They cite that the built environment (real estate and infrastructure, including government buildings) accounts for 35% of wealth in the U.S. and is the largest asset class in the economy.

Adding more development to emerging and existing walkable urban communities starts an upward spiral of investment returns, tax revenues and quality of life -- what Leinberger refers to as "more is better." In contrast, drivable sub-urban development has shown that as more is built, quality of life is reduced, i.e., "more is less." The phenomenon is the reason for the extreme resistance to new development in many parts of metropolitan America, so-called NIMBYism, since it is a rational reaction to the "more is less" syndrome.

"We face a conundrum in how to grow, how we invest the 35% of our wealth that is tied up in the built environment, and provide a high quality of life that is financially and environmentally sustainable. Walkable urbanism is a crucial part of the answer," added Leinberger.

However, federal policies, local zoning codes, our current financing system, and today's real estate development industry's skill-sets have made drivable sub-urban development the de facto domestic policy of the country. This has resulted in geometric increases in land consumption compared to population growth, a host of social ills, long commutes, and increasing rates of obesity, asthma and accidental deaths and injuries from over-reliance on car and truck transportation.

There are even foreign policy implications from the nation's dependence upon an oil-based transportation system from unstable and/or hostile countries, particularly as the probable peak in world-wide oil capacity may be approaching. Finally, there is the intuitive, if not yet proven, connection between this drivable sub-urban domestic policy and CO2 and other green house gas emissions.

Walkable urban areas are also attracting the well-educated. More than 80% of recent residents in such unlikely places as downtown Detroit and Philadelphia are college educated. According to Leinberger, the metropolitan areas that do not offer walkable urban living options will face economic development challenges. The "creative class," working in knowledge-based sectors such as science and media, will settle elsewhere and the enterprises dependent upon them will follow.

Growing demand for walkable urbanism has resulted in a large gap between the current limited supply and much larger pent-up demand, boosting per square foot premiums for walkable urban residential, office and retail space from 40% to 200% of the comparable drivable sub-urban product in the same market.

Recent research in selected metropolitan areas shows that 30% to 40% of households want to live in walkable urban communities, but only 5% to 20% of the housing supply is walkable urban. Because of the relatively small amount of new supply that is added each year to the built environment, the supply of walkable urban housing, office and retail will not catch up to demand for a generation. This has lead to the growing concern about "gentrification" in many metropolitan areas in the country, an unintentional consequence of this new trend.

The Option of Urbanism shows how the American Dream, characterized by a sub-urban lifestyle, is shifting, but outdated federal policies, local zoning laws, financial institutions' formulas and lack of experience by real estate developers still encourage low-density, car-dependent suburban development. The book presents a compelling case for a new national approach and for America's financial and real estate industries to respond to demand for walkable urbanism across the country.

Christopher Leinberger is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, professor and director of the graduate Real Estate Program at the University of Michigan and partner in Arcadia Land Company. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Business School. He now lives in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D.C., with his wife.

Island Press was established in 1984 to stimulate, shape, and communicate the ideas that are essential for solving environmental problems. Publishing approximately 40 books and other information tools a year, we use a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed approach that brings practical solutions to complex challenges like climate change, the depletion of our oceans, sustainable energy and agriculture, and species extinction. A nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, Island Press publishes for scientists, policy makers, environmental practitioners, students, journalists, and the general public.

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Nov/Dec 2007 Issue
Review: Investing in a New American Dream
Urban Land Magazine
by Howard Kozloff

It has been widely chronicled that sprawl can be detrimental to the environment and to the health, mobility, and social interaction of people. Less chronicled, however, are solutions to sprawl that are market driven rather than purely theoretical. Strong demand for suburban environments persists, so part of addressing the problem of sprawl is to bolster the market that counteracts the demand for it. In the latest of his long list of notable writings and accomplishments, author Christopher B. Leinberger introduces in The Option of Urbanism a new framework within which to tackle the question of sprawl and imagine the future.

Through real-life examples and historical analysis, Leinberger explains how and why the United States moved to a model of drivable sub-urbanism from the underpinnings of walkable urbanism, and how and why the pendulum is swinging back toward the walkable model. Recounting General Motors’ Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City to set forth the premise that transportation drives development, Leinberger explains why progressive development that encourages walkability is gaining market acceptance and how it can be expanded.

However, no development pattern is perfect, as Leinberger points out in his chapter “Unintended Consequences of Walkable Urbanism.” Among these consequences are the lack of affordable housing, the problem of what happens to the leftover large-lot single-family homes on the fringe, and the potential erosion of character as national chains replace local mom-and-pop stores. Though recognizing that time is required to comprehend fully the range of issues and solutions involved with walkable urbanism, Leinberger nonetheless pushes on to provide some answers and steps for implementing the walkable model that address these issues as they evolve.
Leinberger’s text is fairly concise, but nonetheless relays a deep ex­pertise in history, contemporary issues, and forward-looking ideas and possible solutions.

In The Option of Urbanism, Leinberger deftly shares his wealth of knowledge through the musings of a writer, the patience of an academic, and the technical ability of an active developer. The book is straightforward and manages to be an enjoyable reading experience for just about anyone interested in where the developing landscape goes from here.

Howard Kozloff is director of operations in New York City for Hart Howerton, a multidisciplinary international planning and design firm.

Urban Land: November/December 2007
© 2007 ULI–the Urban Land Institute, all rights reserved.

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