By Request: Books on Urbanism

Someone in the requests thread wanted me to cite real sources such as books in my posts on transportation and urban policy, and there have been several request for book recommendations generally. The trouble with making citations to books when you're writing a blog is, of course, that I mostly write the blogs in quick snatches all around town and can't lug the whole library with me. My ideas, however, are all derivative and you, too, can read the works from which I've stolen them.

The two key books to read are Christopher Leinberger's The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream which is a great overall summation of the case for urbanism and Donald Shoup's The High Price of Free Parking which takes the simple insight that nothing is ever really "free" and spins it into a tour de force. Ed Glaeser also does lots of interesting work related to the economics of cities.