Product Description

Gratz defines the phenomena of "urban husbandry" as the care, management and preservation of the built environment nurtured by participatory planning efforts of government, urban planners and average citizens. She dramatically demonstrates that we can learn from the costly, overscaled, raze-and-build urban renewal disasters of the past. Includes inspiring case histories of determined people who transformed their devastated neighborhoods.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1048910 in Books
• Published on: 1995-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Back Cover
THE LIVING CITY

"An intelligent analysis. Sensible, undoctrinaire, even good-humored. An appealing mixture of passion and clinical dispassion."
–Washington Post Book World

"The best antidote I’ve read to the doom-and-gloom prophecies concerning the future of urban America."
–Bill Moyers

"This is fresh and fascinating material; it is essential for understanding not only how to avoid repeating terrible mistakes of the past, but also how to recover from them."
–Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities

From coast to coast across America there are countless urban success stories about rejuvenated neighborhoods and resurgent business districts. Roberta Brandes Gratz defines the phenomenon as "urban husbandry"–the care, management, and preservation of the built environment nurtured by genuine participatory planning efforts of government, urban planners, and average citizens.

About the Author
Roberta Brandes Gratz lives in New York City, where she has been involved in urban matters as a community activist, as executive director of a historic restoration project, and as a reporter for the New York Post. In addition, she lectures and writes on urban affairs.

Customer Reviews

A great look at how cities live and die!
Gratz explores how and why cities survive, thrive and die and explores why small, incremental change is often a more successful revitalization strategy than super "downtown malls" or sportsplexes.

It turns out the key to a lively and lovely city is people of all socioeconomic brackets who actually LIVE downtown, which attracts business, arts and culture!

Invaluable Resource
This book is an invaluable resource for those wishing to know more about the multitude of small projects that have taken place across the United States in recent years which have had a positive impact in their respective city's regeneration process.
Lots of details for those wishing to undertake such a project in their own city.
Information about how to save our built heritage and NOT uproot those who currently reside in these places.
Stories of community design at its best, as well as stories of courage and perserverence.
Reading them restores one's faith in the possibilities of doing good in our inner cities.

A very pleasant story about urban revitalization
I have read a lot of books about the issue and they use to be boring and very dificcult to read. This one is the great exception! I really have enjoyed the way the stories are narrated, and the complete information they provide. As an architect specialized in Urban Economics at Buenos Aires , I have found this book very useful for my own research on the issue.