Recommendations | Charles Landry

On this page are various publications, websites and organisations which Charles Landry recommends.

Book recommendations

There are a series of books that describe the changing world we live in, below is a list of some of the those I have found particularly interesting:

Useful links:

Comedia is Charles Landry’s own company and its web site is found at www.comedia.org.uk
Planetizen: Charles’s books were voted 2nd and 12th best of urban books written.
Creative Cities at UCL. This syllabus was prepared in January 2015 by Dr Andrew Harris (University College London) for the interdisciplinary MSc Urban Studies programme:
The Mayors Challenge
Meeting of the minds
Knight Foundation
Resilient Cities
CEOs for Cities is a cross sector network of urban leaders dedicated to speeding innovation in cities.
Cittaslow is an “international network of cities where living is easy”.
Doors of Perception (Doors) is an international conference and knowledge network which sets new agendas for design – in particular, the design agenda for information and communication technologies (ICTs). www.doorsofperception.com/
The Young Foundation is a centre for social innovation based in East London – combining practical projects, the creation of new enterprises, research and publishing
Demos is the think tank for ” democracy”. Their aim is to put this idea into practice by working with organisations in ways that make them more effective and legitimate.
In Australia, Brecknock Consulting work with their clients on a range of cultural planning and policy initiatives such as establishing community needs and formulating policies and strategies to address these needs.
Brave New Traveller is an interesting and unusual travel site.
LabforCulture.org. A networking platform for information on European arts and culture.
Richard Florida’s website is www.creativeclass.org

If Mayors Ruled The World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities

Benjamin Barber

Publisher: Yale University Press
Yale,
2014

Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change

Mike Lydon & Anthony Garcia

Publisher: Washington/Covelo/London Island Press
2015

Arrival City: How the largest migration in history is reshaping our world

Doug Saunders

Publisher: Windmill Books
London
2010

Love Where you Live: Creating Emotionally engaging Places

Peter Kageyama

Publisher: Creative city Productions
146 pages
2014

The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of fear humiliation and hope are reshaping the world

Dominique Moisi

Publisher: Anchor Books
New York
2010

Enough is enough: Building a sustainable economy in a world of finite resources

Rob Dietz & Dan O”Neill

Publisher: Routledge
London /New York
2013

Post Capitalism:A guide to our future

Paul Mason

Publisher: Penguin Books
London
2016

All that we share: A field guide to the commons

Jay Walljasper

Publisher: The New Press
New York ,London,The New Press
2010

The Great Neighbourhood Book: A do-it-yourself Guide to Placemaking

Jay Walljasper

Publisher: New Society Publishers
Gabriola Island,
2007

The Long Emergency: Surviving the converging catastrophes of the 21st Century

Howard James Kunstler

Publisher: Atlantic Books
London
2005

The Faber Book of Utopias

John Carey, ed.

Publisher: Faber and Faber
London
1999

The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the secret joys of Bureaucracy

David Graeber

Publisher: Melville House Printing
Brooklyn
2015

The Age of Absurdity: Why modern life makes it hard to be happy

Michael Foley

Publisher: Simon and Schuster
London/New York/Sydney/Toronto
2010

The Yacoubian Building

Alaa Al Aswany

Publisher: Harper Collins
London
2011

Suburban Urbanities: Suburbs and the Life of the High Street

Laura Vaughn

Publisher: London UCL Press
London,
2015

Nothing is True and Everything is possible: Adventures in Modern Russia

Peter Pomerantsev

Publisher: Faber and Faber
London
2015

Urbanism

David Rudlin, Rob Thompson & Sarah Jarvis

Publisher: Routledge
Abingdon,
2016

The Radical Incrementalist: How to build Urban Society in 12 lessons

Kelvin Campbell & Rob Cowan

Publisher: Massive small
London,
2016

The Discovery of Happiness

Stuart McCready, ed.

Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc.
Illinois
2001

10 Years Volume To beyond or not to be

ARCHIS

Publisher: Stichting-ARCHIS
Rotterdam
2015

Civic Commons: Reimagining our Cities Public Assets

Studio Gang Architects

Chicago
2016

Utopia

Merlin Overly

Publisher: Pocket Essentials
Harpenden
2010

In Praise of Doubt : How to have convictions without becoming a fanatic

Peter Zijderveld Berger

Publisher: Harper Collins
New York,
2010

Stress and The City

Mazda Adli

Publisher: Random House
München
2017

Unruly Places: Lost spaces, secret cities and other inscrutable geographies

Alaistair Bonnett

Publisher: Houghton, Miffin, Harcourt
246 pages
2014

The Barbarians : An essay on the Mutation of Culture

Alessandro Baricco

Publisher: Rizzoli Ex Libris
New York,
2013

Architecture Activism

Lars Kruckeberg, WolframPutz & Thomas Willemeit

Publisher: Basel Birkhäuser
Germany
2016

Collapse: How Societies Choose to fail or Succeed

Jared Diamond

Publisher: Penguin
New York
2005

The Values of Bureaucracy

Paul Du Gay

Publisher: Oxford University Press
331 pages
2005

Berlin Wonderland: Wild Years Revisited 1990-1996

Anke Fesel & Chris Keller

Publisher: Bobsairport,
Berlin
2016

Berlin Heart Beats: Stories from the Wild Years 1990-Present

Anke Fesel & Chris Keller

Publisher: Bobsairport/Suhrkamp
Nova Berlin
2017

Trieste & the Meaning of Nowhere

Jan Morris

Publisher: Faber & Faber
188 pages
2001

Aerotropolis

John Kasarda & Greg Lindsay

Publisher: Penguin
432 pages
2011

The Flickering Mind Saving Education from the false promise of technology

Todd Oppenheimer

Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Random House USA Inc.
New title edition 2004

Sustainability: A cultural history

Ulrich Gruber

Publisher: Green Books
201 pages
2012

Urban Literacy

Klaske Havik

Publisher: nai010 Publishers
254 pages
2014

The Spirit of Cities

Daniel A. Bell & Avnar de-Shalit

Publisher: Oxford Univeristy Press
277 pages
2011

Beyond Smart Cities: how cities network, learn and innovate

Tim Campbell

Publisher: Earthscan
214 pages
2012

City & Soul

James Hillman

Publisher: Spring Publications Inc.
413 pages
2006

Urban Design: Space & Society

Ali Madanipour

Publisher: Palgrave/Macmillan
262 pages
2014

Designing the City of Reason

Ali Madanipour

Publisher: Routledge
299 pages
2007

Cosmopolitan Urbanism

ed. John Binney, Julian Holloway, Steve Millington, Craig Young

Publisher: Routledge
253 pages
2006

Fooled by Randomness - the hidden role of chance in life and in the markets

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: Penguin
2007

The Wisom of Crowds - why the many are smarter than the fews

James Surowiecki

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Abacus;
New edition 2005

In Spite of the Gods - the strange rise of modern India

Edward Luce

No details.

The Paradox of Choice - why more is less

Barry Schwartz

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
New edition 2005

The Tipping Point

Malcolm Gladwell

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Abacus
New edition 2002

Freakonomics

Steven D Levitt and Steven J Dubner

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Penguin
2007

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand

Chris Anderson

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Random House Business Books
2007

The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand

[Audiobook] (Audio CD)

Audio CD
Publisher: Random House Audiobooks
2007

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Penguin
2008

Wikinomics

Dan Tapschott and Antony D Williams

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Atlantic Books
2008

The following books take a much broader sweep of things and here are some I have found interesting:

From Dawn to Decadence

Jacques Barzun

Paperback: 912 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial;
1st edition 2001

Biomimicry - Innovation Inspired by Nature

Janine M. Benyus

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
2003

Natural Capitalism - the next industrial revolution

Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Earthscan Ltd.
New edition 2000

Collapse - how societies choose to fail or succeed

Jared Diamond

Paperback: 592 pages
Publisher: Penguin
2006

The Wake of Imagination

Richard Kearney

Paperback: 467 pages
Publisher: Routledge;
1st edition 1988

Arts & Physics - parallel visions in space, time and light

Leonard Shlain

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial
2007

The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have shaped Our World View

Richard Tarnas

Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: Pimlico
1996

The Rise of the Creative Class and how it's transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life

Richard Florida

Paperback: 434 pages
Publisher: Basic Books;
New edition 2003

Who's your city how the creative economy is making where to live the most important decision of your life

Richard Florida

Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Basic Books Inc.,U.S.
2008

Looking at the urban arena there are a number of classic books which are well worth reading:

The City in History: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects

Lewis Mumford

Paperback: 657 pages
Publisher: Harcourt Brace International
1968

Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jane Jacobs

Hardcover: 624 pages
Publisher: Random House Inc;
New edition 1997

The Image of the City

Kevin Lynch

Paperback: 202 pages
Publisher: The MIT Press
1960

Cities of Tomorrow: an intellectual history of urban planning and design in the twentieth century

Peter Hall

Paperback: 502 pages
Publisher: Wiley Blackwell;
2nd Revised edition edition 1996