ABOUT THIS BOOK

"Hank lived by the credo 'first listen, then design.'"
—Scott Bernstein, Founder and Chief Strategy + Innovation Officer, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Hank Dittmar was a globally recognized urban planner, advocate, and policy advisor. He wrote extensively on a wide range of topics, including architectural criticism, community planning, and transportation policy over his long and storied career.

In My Kind of City, Dittmar has organized his selected writings into ten sections with original introductions. His observations range on scale from local ("My Favorite Street: Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London") to national ("Post Truth Architecture in the Age of Trump") and global ("Architects are Critical to Adapting our Cities to Climate Change"). Andrés Duany writes of Hank in the book foreword, "He has continued to search for ways to engage place, community and history in order to avoid the tempting formalism of plans."

The range of topics covered in My Kind of City reflects the breadth of Dittmar's experience in working for better cities for people. Common themes emerge in the engaging prose including Dittmar's belief that improving our cities should not be left to the "experts"; his appreciation for the beautiful and the messy; and his rare combination of deep expertise and modesty. As Lynn Richards, CEO of Congress for the New Urbanism expresses in the preface, "Hank's writing is smart without being elitist, witty and poetic, succinct and often surprising."

My Kind of City captures a visionary planner's spirit, eye for beauty, and love for the places where we live.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Hank Dittmar (1956–2018) was the founding principal of Hank Dittmar Associates, an international urban planning firm. Before that, he was chief executive of The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community, founding president and CEO of Reconnecting America, and executive director of the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. His long, varied career included service as a regional planner, airport director, policy advisor, and outreach worker with street gangs in Chicago. He published extensively on planning, urban design, and architecture.

REVIEWS

"I found the wide variety of topics covered in this book to be engaging. Dittmar’s advocacy for high quality design is coupled with his deep understanding of sustainability, and his knowledge and experience with getting projects built. His writing is clear and concise, and he offers an uncommon point of view, that of an architect planner with a strong emphasis on transportation. I recommend this book for use in graduate classes; the essays would provide useful material for a variety of classroom discussions."

— Journal of Urban Affairs

"This book of essays is a joy to read. Hank's writing is smart without being elitist, witty and poetic, succinct and often surprising. Hank's approach to life—and to cities—was to embrace the 'messy'—a word he uses to good effect in key passages in this book. As he notes in the opening section (a series of love letters to complicated places), cities are 'hard to plan, easy to ruin, yet surprisingly adaptable and resilient.'"

— Adapted from the preface by Lynn Richards, President and CEO, Congress for the New Urbanism

"Hank Dittmar said that Christopher Alexander changed his life. I'm happy to say that Hank changed mine. It's hard to describe how enriching it was to work alongside such an insightful leader and observer of our built environment. Fortunately, for future generations of urbanists My Kind of City reveals some of Hank's finest thinking, especially the ways in which he delighted in the complex interactions between people, culture, design, and place."

— Don Chen, President, Surdna Foundation

"Hank shows a rare sensibility within his profession: He has obviously been much moved by beauty. In these essays, he has contributed to the emerging belief that there are certain aesthetic constants across culture, time, and class, and that these can be objectively apprehended and taught."

— From the foreword by Andres Duany, Partner, DPZ Partners

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note from the Publisher

Foreword by Andrés Duany
Preface by Lynn Richards

Part 1. My Kind of Town
New Orleans is My Kind of Town, Architecture Today
Auckland: At Water’s Edge
I Could Learn to Love LA All Over Again, “Planetizen”
My Favorite Street: Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London, From Victor Dover and John Massengale, Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns by John Massengale and Victor Dover

Part 2. The Cavaliers vs. the Roundheads
Style Wars are Irrelevant when Architecture is Reduced to Floor-plate Cladding, “Building Design”
Southbank Scheme isn’t Wrong, it’s Just Bland, “Building Design”
When Will Stirling laureates be allowed to quote from Wren?, “Building Design”
People in Glass Houses, “Building Design”
Continuity or Contrast: Take Your Pick, “Building Design”
Three Classicists: Classicism in an Era of Pluralism, From Three Classicists, by Ben Pentreath, George Saumarez Smith, and Francis Terry

Part 3. Continuity and Context
Continuity and Context in Urbanism and Architecture: the Honesty of a Living Tradition, “Conservation Bulletin 59”
Linking Lincoln: Legacy, Ecology and Commerce, from “Pienza: Legacy, Continuity and Tradition”, Seaside Pienza Institute

Part 4. Bouquets and Brickbats
London’s Skyscraper Designers Should Aim High Like Chicago, “Building Design”
An Urbanist’s View of the Stirling Shortlist, “Building Design” Don’t Students Need Proper Housing?, “Building Design”
The Urbanists’ Stirling Prize, “Building Design” Location Dictates the Success of Monument Design, “Building Design”
It’s Time for a New Serpentine Pavilion Design Brief, “Building Design”

Part 5. Sustainability and Tradition
Sustainability and Tradition

Part 6. On Christopher Alexander’s Athena Award

Part 7. Urbanism in Late Stage Capitalism
Post Truth Architecture in the Age of Trump, “Building Design”
Finally Some Smart Thinking About Garden Cities, “Building Design”
Garden Towns Need Some Garden City Thinking to Succeed, “Building Design”
Here’s the Detail That’s Missing from All the Manifestos, “Building Design”
Letter to Edward Glaeser in Response to “Two Green Visions: the Prince and the Mayor,” in Triumph of the City
Can Smart Urban Design Tackle the Rise of Nationalism? “Building Design”
“2011 Founders Forum on the New Urbanism at Seaside, Florida”, Contribution to an Unpublished Book
Architects are Critical to Adapting our Cities to Climate Change, “Building Design”
You’ve Got to Hand it to Post-Modernism, “Building Design”

Part 8. Lean Urbanism: Making Small Possible
A Lean Urbanism for England: Making Small Possible and Localism Real, LeanUrbanism.org
Pink Zones Can Lighten Planning Red Tape, “Building Design”
Big Ideas Don’t Often Produce Great Architecture, “Building Design”
Riding the Railroad to Revival, “Building Design”
Urban Recycling and Doubling Up: How Cities Really Respond to Growth, “Building Design”
How to Diversify Housing Delivery with Some Help from Architects, “Building Design”
Seeing Empty Homes as an Asset, Not a Liability, “Building Design”

Part 9. About London
London’s Tall Buildings Bloopers, “Building Design”
A Towering Mess that the Government has the Power—But not the Will—to Address, “Building Design”
Just Because the Powell & Moya Site is Available doesn’t mean it’s the right place for a Concert Hall, “Building Design”
Old Street Will Need More than Money, “Building Design”
We Need Real Homes, not Ivory Towers, “Building Design”
Bigging up Battersea: A Progress Report, “Building Design”
Are We Serious About Estate Regeneration?, “Building Design”

London’s Housing Problems are Beyond the Power of Market Forces to Solve, “Building Design”

Part 10. From Place to Place
A Greener, More Pleasant Vision for Travel and Transport, The Ecologist
Why We Can’t Afford to Miss the Train, “Building Design”
Beauty isn’t a Dirty Word, “Building Design”
Highway Capital and Economic Productivity, Reconnecting America
Testimony before US Senate Commerce Committee in Air and Rail, 2003, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, Amtrak
Sprawl: The Automobile and Affording the American Dream, in Sustainable Planet, by Juliet Schor and Betsy Taylor
Why We Need to Get Beyond the Automated Highway System, Presentation to the National Automated Highway System Assessment Committee, National Academy of Sciences
Thinking Like a System: Operationalizing Sustainability Through Transportation Technologies, ITS World Congress

About the Author

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