Sign-In
Cart
The Story of Urban Planning
Paperback
General United States HistoryUnited States Politics
Publisher: ASYNC Education, LLC
Published: Aug 1 2026
Pages: 226
Weight: 0.59
Height: 0.48 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
Every American city is the product of decisions - about where to put the roads, who gets to live where, what gets torn down and what gets built in its place. Most of those decisions were made by planners, following rules that were written in response to crises that most people have forgotten.
Those rules have names. The Standard Zoning Enabling Act. Euclid v. Ambler. Urban renewal. The interstate program. The environmental laws. They appear on planning exams as a list of disconnected facts, each with a date and an acronym, none of them speaking to the others. For most people who study them, that is what they remain: a heap of true and separate things.
They were never separate. Zoning was a response to the crowding and contagion of the industrial city. Urban renewal was a response to the slums that zoning couldn't fix. The highway revolts were a response to urban renewal. The environmental laws were built out of the revolts. The housing crisis we live in now is, in part, a consequence of those very laws. Each item on the list was an answer to the one before it and the cause of the one after. There was a story beneath the trivia the entire time.
The Story of Urban Planning tells that story - from the tenements of the 1890s to the housing fights of the present - as one continuous narrative rather than a glossary of terms. It is not a study guide, and you do not need to be a planner to read it.
This is not a story of progress, in which each generation corrects the last and the city steadily improves. Nor is it a story of villains. Again and again, planners identified a real problem, acted on it with the best tools and knowledge available, and solved it - and the solution produced a new problem that the next generation inherited. The park displaced the people whose land it took. The zoning that separated the factory from the home went on to separate everyone from everyone. The clearance that removed the slum raised the tower that replaced it.
Understanding planning means learning to hold those truths at the same time: that action matters, that action is necessary, and that action carries consequences no one intends.
For planning professionals, this is the context behind the exam material - the reasons the cases were decided the way they were, why the laws were written the way they were, and what actually happened when they were applied.
For general readers, it is an account of how the American city got to be the way it is: why housing costs what it costs, why highways went where they went, why some neighborhoods survived and others didn't, and who made those decisions and on what authority.
The argument is unfinished because the city is unfinished. The next chapter belongs to the people who live in it.
Also in
General United States History
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
The Agrarian Seeds of Empire: The Political Economy of Agriculture in Us State Building
Bauerly, Brad
Paperback
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made
Kobes Du Mez, Kristin
Hardcover
What Every American Needs to Know about the Qur'an: A History of Islam & the United States
Federer, William J.
Paperback
Department of Fate: The Promise, the Power, and the Collapse of America's Most Consequential Institution
Maddow, Rachel
Hardcover
American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union: An Anthology
Meacham, Jon
Hardcover
Freedom's Daughters: How a Generation of Black Women Resisted Oppression Through Literacy and Education
Headlee, Celeste
Hardcover
When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America's Black Botanical Legacy
Montgomery, Beronda L.
Hardcover
The East Wing: Power, Intrigue, and the Untold Story of America's First Ladies
Moaveni, Azadeh
Hardcover
Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight Against Equality in America
Phillips-Fein, Kim
Hardcover
America in 25 Revolutions: The Story of Our Imperfect Nation's 250-Year Quest to Become a More Perfect Union
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Power
Isenberg, Nancy
Hardcover
Miracles in American History: 32 Amazing Stories of Answered Prayer
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
The Elections That Changed the World: Fifteen Pivotal Moments That Shaped How We Live
Bash, Dana
Hardcover
Mysteries of the National Parks: 35 Stories of Baffling Disappearances, Unexplained Phenomena, and More
Bezemek, Mike
Paperback
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Smith, Clint
Paperback
The Promise of a Nation: Commemorating 250 Years of Patriotism, Resilience, and Aspirations from the National Collection
Smithsonian Institution
Hardcover
Travels with Charley in Search of America: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Steinbeck, John
Paperback
This Haunted Land: Reckoning with Ghosts and the Stories That Shape America
Quammen, Betsy Gaines
Hardcover
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
Loewen, James W.
Paperback
The Girls Who Beat the Odds: Stories of Women Who Changed the Course of Sports History
Eder, Mari K.
Hardcover
1000 American History Facts and 101 True Tales: A Journey Through America's Defining Moments and Figures
Publications, Ahoy
Hardcover
We the Women: The Hidden Heroes Who Shaped America (Large Print Edition)
O'Donnell, Norah
Andersen Brower, Kate
Paperback
Princeton Review AP U.S. History Premium Prep, 26th Edition: 6 Practice Tests + Digital Practice Online + Content Review
The Princeton Review
Paperback
American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate
Lichtblau, Eric
Hardcover
The Price of Democracy: The Revolutionary Power of Taxation in American History
Williamson, Vanessa S.
Hardcover
Erased: True Stories about Race and Racism in America That You Probably Weren't Taught in School
Korgen, Kathleen
Khanna, Nikki
Hardcover
Old Glory: Iconic Flags and the Stories They Tell of America's 250-Year History
Miller, Roland
Hardcover
AP U.S. History Premium, 2027: 5 Practice Tests + Comprehensive Review + Online Practice
Resnick, Eugene V., M. a.
Paperback
The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century
Rosenblatt, Helena
Paperback
Let's Have a Parade: Celebrating 100 Macy's Parades: And the Making of an American Holiday Tradition
Keller, Kim
Hardcover
Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity
Sutton, Matthew Avery
Hardcover
Sunrise Through the Darkness: A Survivor's Account of Learning to Live Again Beyond 9/11
Jimeno, Will
Moats, Michael
Paperback
Forever Stamps: 250 Years of United States History Writ Small
Smith, Brian E.
United States Postal Service
Anderson, Gail
Hardcover
The Central Fire of the Iroquois: A Five-Hundred-Year History of the Onondaga Nation
Oberg, Michael Leroy
Hardcover
Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
Pember, Mary Annette
Paperback
American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America
Woodard, Colin
Paperback
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America: Second Revised and Updated Edition
Gonzalez, Juan
Paperback
Unusual Orcas Island: Ghost Stories and Other Legends from the Gem of the San Juans
Reigel, Joseph
Paperback
American Soul: The Black History of Food in the United States - Including 40 Recipes
Malik, Anela
Wilson, Renae
Hardcover
Watching the Girls Go by: A History of Street Harassment in the United States
Brookfield, Molly M.
Paperback
Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership
Baker, Brea
Hardcover
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Smith, Clint
Hardcover
Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century
Bessner, Daniel
Paperback
Frederick Douglass's American Founding: How the Nation's Fiercest Critic Embraced the Constitution
Rasmussen, Dennis C.
Hardcover
Ohio Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff
Gurvis, Sandra
Paperback
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
Freeman, Andrea
Paperback
The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
Crist, David
Paperback
The Grift: The Downward Spiral of Black Republicans from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump
Cane, Clay
Paperback
Land of Hope Young Reader's Edition: An Invitation to the Great American Story Volume 1
McClay, Wilfred M.
Paperback
Colonial Williamsburg: The Guide: The Official Companion to the Historic Area
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Paperback
Mexican Americans, American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos
Meier, Matt S.
Ribera, Feliciano
Paperback
The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo: A Child, an Elder, and the Light from an Ancient Sky
Nerburn, Kent
Paperback
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft: 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Levenda, Peter
Hardcover
The Declaration Of Independence, United States Constitution, Bill Of Rights & Amendments
Fathers, Founding
Paperback
Re-Inhabited: Republic for the United States of America: Volume II The Story of the Re-inhabitation
Hertler, Jean Hallahan
Paperback
Borgata: Autumn of Empire: A History of the American Mafia: Volume 3 of the Borgata Trilogy
Ferrante, Louis
Hardcover
Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne
Paperback
250 Great American Things: A Semi-Quincentennial Celebration
Kirn, Walter
Highway, County
Samuels, David
Paperback
Chicken Soup for the Soul: Celebrating the Spirit of America: 101 Stories about the Country We All Love
Newmark, Amy
Paperback