Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions For Redesigning Suburbs, Updated Edition

Updated with a new Introduction by the authors and a foreword by Richard Florida, this book is a comprehensive guide book for urban designers, planners, architects, developers, environmentalists, and community leaders that illustrates how existing suburban developments can be redesigned into more urban and more sustainable places. While there has been considerable attention by practitioners and academics to development in urban cores and new neighborhoods on the periphery of cities, there has been little attention to the redesign and redevelopment of existing suburbs. The authors, both architects and noted experts on the subject, show how development in existing suburbs can absorb new growth and evolve in relation to changed demographic, technological, and economic conditions.

Retrofitting Suburbia was named winner in the Architecture & Urban Planning category of the 2009 American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (The PROSE Awards) awarded by The Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers

Ellen Dunham-Jones, AIA, is professor of architecture and urban design in the College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. An award-winning registered architect, she has published extensively on urban design and criticism and is on the board of directors of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

June Williamson, LEED AP, is associate professor of architecture at The City College of New York. A registered architect, she has contributed to numerous urban design projects. Her writing has been published in numerous journals and, in 2010, she conceived the design competition "Build a Better Burb."

Foreword: by Richard Florida.

2011 Update.

Preface.

Introduction.

Acknowledgments.

PART I. THE ARGUMENT.

Chapter 1. Instant Architecture, Instant Cities, and Incremental Metropolitanism.

PART II. THE EXAMPLES.

Chapter 2. Retrofitting Garden Apartments and Residential Subdivisions to Address Density and the New Demographics.

Chapter 3. Residential Case Study: Changes to “Levittown”.

Chapter 4. Retrofitting Social Life Along Commercial Strips.

Chapter 5. Strips Case Study: Mashpee Commons, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Chapter 6. From Regional Malls to New Downtowns Through Mixed-Use and Public Space.

Chapter 7. Mall Case Study: Cottonwood, Holladay, Utah.

Chapter 8. Mall Case Study: Belmar, Lakewood, Colorado.

Chapter 9. Edge City Infill: Improving Walkability and Interconnectivity.

Chapter 10. Edge City Case Study: Downtown Kendall/Dadeland, Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Chapter 11. Suburban Offi ce and Industrial Park Retrofits to Recruit the Creative Class.

Chapter 12. Office Park Case Study: University Town Center, Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Epilogue: The Landscape of Incremental Metropolitanism in 2050.

Notes.

Image Credits.

Index.