Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Wiley Series in Sustainable Design)
by Stephen Coyle

Having embarked on a sustainability plan without the aid or foresight of any type of guidebook or comprehensive strategy, I am extremely supportive of the effort that author Stephen Coyle has undertaken in compiling Sustainable and Resilient Communities. This book should be the “Read Me!” document for anyone looking to engage in sustainability planning efforts from a government or community perspective.  It’s not the first book that I’ve read on how to engage in sustainability efforts (honestly such titles are beginning to become “a dime a dozen”), but it is the first book I've read that breaks the mold and focuses intenselyon how to create an action plan to make a community more sustainable (rather than simply focusing on successful efforts in other areas).  Coyle manages to provide realistic strategies that can easily be worked into the political context of almost any community without crossing into the fringe of developing technologies or antiquated reductionist themes.

The Fires: How a Computer Formula, Big Ideas, and the Best of Intentions Burned Down New York City-and Determined the Future of Cities
Joe Flood

In his book The Fires: How a Computer Formula, Big Ideas, and the Best of Intentions Burned Down New York City-and Determined the Future of Cities author Joe Flood doesn’t just provide a narrative account, he gives a well-documented admonishment directed toward politicians, urban planners, and other entities that help shape the built environment in which we live.  Simply put, Flood warns of an over-reliance on statistical modeling and a lack of human input in decision-making.  Flood centers his focus on the career of New York Fire Department Chief John O’Hagan and the political maneuvering that allowed the NYFD to weather the department’s “War Years” (a time period characterized by widespread fires in impoverished areas, social upheaval, and economic turmoil).  Flood also maintains a larger focus on the systems of government that Chief O’Hagan found himself tangled within during his reign as well as the larger bureaucratic frameworks that were being integrated into society at the time.