Cities of the Past, Cities of the Future

Cities are where most of humanity’s creative and intellectual ideation, communication, and innovation takes place, so understanding cities is vital to understanding our civilization.
~Maria Popova, "Understanding Urbanity: 7 Must-Read Books About Cities"

We always enjoy a good biography...even if its subject is not a person, but a city! We've put together a list of books about cities around the world, because how urban centers evolve seems very interesting. Each metropolis grew up differently, to meet different needs, with different agendas. To give you an idea of how cities grow, particularly now in the era of green cities, we've included some books about urban planning.

It's also helpful to remember that we live in a city with its own unique history! The City of Albuquerque website is a great resource for finding out how to get around in town, to register your business, learn housing codes, find volunteer opportunities, view the pollen count, get hold of public records, look up city construction projects and city contracts with vendors, find a job, and read essays about the city history during different periods, such as Territorial.

City Histories

Berlin Now: The City After the Wall by Peter Schneider

Paris at the End of the World: The City of Light During the Great War, 1914-1918 by John Baxter

Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America and the Making of Modern Los Angeles by Jon Wilkman   

St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America's Hippest Street by Ada Calhoun

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing

Buenos Aires: The Biography of a City by James Gardner

Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation by Anne Sebba

A History of Spirituality in Santa Fe: The City of Holy Faith by Ana Pacheco

The City: A Global History by Joel Kotkin

Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Future by Tom Scocca 

Dancing With the Devil in the City of God: Rio de Janeiro On the Brink by Juliana Barbassa 

Thrilling Cities by Ian Fleming

 
Genoa, 'La superba': The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower by Nicholas Walton

The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle by Francisco Goldman

We're Still Here, Ya Bastards: How the People of New Orleans Rebuilt Their City by Roberta Brandes Gratz

Los Angeles Plays Itself [DVD]

City Planning & Urbanization

Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward L. Glaeser

Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next by John D. Kasarda, Greg Lindsay 

Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World by Wade Graham 

Atlas of Cities edited by Paul Knox 

Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution by Jennifer Cockrall-King

A History of Future Cities by Daniel Brook 

On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems That Make Our World Work by Scott Huler 

Radical Cities: Across Latin America in Search of a New Architecture by Justin McGuirk  

Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves From the Automobile by Taras Grescoe 

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt  

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design by Charles Montgomery  

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond  

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck 

Start-Up City: Inspiring Private & Public Entrepreneurship, Getting Projects Done, and Having Fun by Gabe Klein ; with David Vega-Barachowitz  

Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America's Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World by Catherine Tumber 

Where We Want to Live: Reclaiming Infrastructure For a New Generation of Cities by Ryan Gravel 

City by City: Dispatches From the American Metropolis  edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb