City Rules offers a challenge to students and professionalsin urban planning, design, and policy to change the rules ofcity-building, using regulations to reinvigorate, rather than stifle,our communities. Emily Talen demonstrates that regulations are aprimary detriment to the creation of a desirable urban form. While manycontemporary codes encourage sprawl and even urban blight, thathasn't always been the case-and it shouldn't be in thefuture.
Talen provides a visually rich history, showing how certain erasused rules to produce beautiful, walkable, and sustainable communities,while others created just the opposite. She makes complex regulationsunderstandable, demystifying city rules like zoning and illustratinghow written codes translate into real-world consequences. Mostimportantly, Talen proposes changes to these rules that will actuallyenhance communities' freedom to develop unique spaces.
... Emily Talen's new book City Rules: How Regulations Affects Urban Form is so interesting and important. It makes totally clear that architects and designers don't determine how small or big or what form to make our houses, the rules do. And those rules are often arbitrary, capricious and stupid.
... insightful and intelligent ... City Rules offers an essential basis for how to proceed.
