Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder [Paperback]

One of the world's foremost urban designers shares his passion and methods for rejuvenating neglected cities and argues passionately for the importance and possibilities of their renewal.

From a youth spent in the boroughs of New York City and other great cities of the world, to his beginnings as an architect in Toronto, Ken Greenberg has long recognized that cities at their best provide much of what we seek in a place to call home. Community, places of culture and business that we can walk to, mass transit and a wealth of amenities that couldn't be supported without a city's density: the mid-century drive to suburbanization deprived us of these inherent advantages of urban living. The realization of this loss, in tandem with pressing recent concerns about energy scarcity and global warming, has made us see cities with fresh eyes and a growing understanding that they can provide us with an unparalleled measure of sustainability.

Ken Greenberg has not only advocated for the renewal of downtown cores, he has for thirty years designed the very means by which that renewal can happen.Walking Homeis both Ken's story and a lesson in turning the world's urban spaces back into places that can give us not only a platform to face the challenges of the future, but also a place we can call, with pride and satisfaction, home.“Walking Homearrives at a good time in Canadian urbanism. . . . If you’ve been intimidated by the confounding planning language in miniscule type used in those newspaper rezoning ads, Greenberg’s guide to city building is refreshingly accessible and invites all of us to join in. . . . There’s much hope inWalking Home.”
—Shawn Micallef,National Post
 
“A book that feels hopeful and invigorating. . . . Smart, but accessible. And those that know little about planning history have nothing to fear, as Greenberg does the sweep through history picking up the usual suspelóT