Any regular reader of the blog will know that i’m a big fan of the author Richard Florida.  Florida has written a number of outstanding books such as The Creative Class or Who’s Your City?.  Both books have a heavy urban focus and discuss why certain people decide on certain places to live or the new ways in which the current generations choose to live.

For his latest book, The Great Reset, Florida focuses on the recent recession and how it will change our economy and the way we live.  I have currently read half the book and am once again enthralled with the subject matter.  Florida relates our current recession to the last two economic crashes (The Great Depression and the Long Depression of the 1870′s) and discusses how these troubled times often brought about the greatest innovation that helped shape how people would live in the future.

As with any of his other books, Florida discusses a number of different urban issues.  He touches on the decline of the rust belt cities such as Detroit or Buffalo and the reasons for their decline.  Perhaps more intriguing is Florida’s focus on the decline of many of the sun belt cities such as Phoenix or Miami which were almost solely driven by real estate in the last decade.  Now that the recession has hit, property prices in these places have been decimated and unlike cities like San Francisco, Boston or Houston, they don’t have much else to rely on economically.

I will provide another post when I finish the book, but for the time being, I recommend anyone who is a fan of Richard Florida or a fan of social economics to pick up a copy of The Great Reset.

I recently started reading ‘Fixing Broken Cities’ by John Kromer and so far have been enthralled with a great deal of the subject matter of the book.  The book documents the revilization strategies put in place to help prevent the continual decline of Philadelphia and help restore the city’s urban environment.  The concepts in the book may not directly apply to all cities, but certainly applies to many of the troubled North American centers who’s major focus throughout the early and mid 20th century was manufacturing and have since suffered in a more service and white-collared economy.   John Kromer certainly is able to go into great deal about the implementation strategies.  Chapter 2, in particular is a fantastic read on perhaps one of the greatest urban renewal projects: the revitilization of a cities downtown.  Although the book is not a simple read for an amateur urban enthusiast, it’s still a read I highly recommend.

I’ll admit it, i’m a huge fan of travel guides.  My bookshelf is full of them.  And i’ve only used about 20% of them for real, practical travel purposes.  However, for individuals who have planned their travels 3 or 4 years in advance like myself, there is nothing quite like purchasing a new travel guide.  I have a wide variety of different travel guides and found them all to have their individual strengths.  The National Geographic guides offer excellent full page photos.  Eyewitness travel guides are great for covering entire countries.  Lonely Planet is a solid bet for information, especially on off the beaten path material.  But since this is a blog about the urban world, I thought i’d highlight one particular travel guide that happens to be my favorite for cities alone: Insight Travel Guides.  My last three urban travel guide purchases have all been insight guides.

What’s so special about these guides?  It’s that they do everything right.  They have loads of pictures (eat your heart Lonely Planet), they still have a solid amount of information and their accompanying maps are the easiest and most frequent of any guide i’ve seen.  Since I know next to nothing about the company, I thought i’d take a look at what Wikipedia says about the publisher:

Insight Guides are a corporation based in London who create travel guides for commercial and domestic use. They produce atlases, city guides and maps. Other detailed guides include shopping, eating and museum guides. Insight Guides was founded by Hans Johannes Hofer. His first book, was based on the island of Bali, and was funded by a local hotel there and was published in 1970, Insight Guide:Bali in 1970. From there he built his publishing empire, exceeding 400 over guide books on over 100 destinations and in the late 90s sold his share of the company to Langenscheidt KG.

God bless the British.

I have recently begun reading the rather entertaining book ‘The Global Soul’ by Pico Iyer and must say that I am rather impressed.  The book focuses on the (fairly new) concept of displaced individuals who are unable to identify themselves with a certain place and locations that have become less and less identifiable to any particular region.  ‘The Global Soul’ devotes entire chapters to exploring these relationships in a number of places including the LAX aiport, Atlanta (during the Olympics) and my current hometown of Toronto.  The Toronto chapter is particularly intriguing as it discusses the status of Toronto as a multicultural hub and how it has become a destination where a number of people from around the world have found a home away from home.  As someone who has lived in several different places within the last 5 years, the book does touch home ever so slightly.  Most of all, however, ‘The Global Soul’ is a very enthralling read and one I would highly recommend to those interested in the relationship between people and place.

If you’re a fan of city skylines, then i’ve definitely got the book for you.  I recently bought the rather large coffee-table book ‘Skylines: American Cities Yesterday and Today’ and I must say it was worth every penny.  The book focuses on the development of many (and I really mean many) american skylines ending each profile with a glorious two page panorama of each skyline.  There are a couple of really great ones.  Chicago and Atlanta look particularly elegant.  The book is obviously more focused on the photos but is able to share at least a small bit of information on each skyline and it’s evolution.  Perhaps my favorite aspect of the book is just how many cities it profiles.  You obviously have your New Yorks and San Franciscos, but the book also features lesser known cities such as Little Rock, Providence and Madison.  All in all, this book is definitely one of my best purchases in a while.  Oh, and there is apparently an international version of the book as well.

A while back, I mentioned I was reading the book Who’s Your City by Richard Florida.  After finishing the book, I must say it was one of the most enjoyable books i’ve read in a long time.  For those who have never heard of the book before, it is a book that describes how where we choose to live is one of the most important decisions in our life.  The book mentions a ‘place finder’ on it’s website which helps  individuals  decide on what city is most ideal for them.  The concept is very simple.  Say, you have a short list of cities you are thinking of perhaps moving to.  The place finder allows you to rate each city from 1 to 5 in 20 different categories including obvious criteria such as the job prospects and climate and less obvious ones such as leadership.   Perhaps the only problem is you need to have done your research on each and every city you compare.  Yet, it helps simplify what can be a very difficult decision.  You an find the link to the Who’s Your City Place Finder below:

Who’s Your City Place Finder

A co-worker of mine recently turned me on to the works of Richard Florida, a professer of Business and Creativity at the University of Toronto.  His latest book, ‘Who’s your City’ is an exceptional look into perhaps the most important decision of our lives: where we choose to live.  As an individual who has always put place over other oppurtunities, it’s refreshing to hear such a point of view.  The book outlines the rise of the mega-region (a larger statistical region generally composed of nearby metropolitan centres) which are becoming the new economic drivers in today`s world.  I highly recommend this book for some very insigtful information on why place truly matters.  You can purchase the book here

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