U.C. Berkeley Library Web
Environmental Design Library
Urban Design
Getting Started
Gateway Sites
Organizations 		Doing Research
Finding Books
Bibliographies
Finding Journal Articles
Journals
Finding Images
Finding Maps & Aerial Photos 		Practice
Best Practices
Standards
Case Studies & Projects
Methodology | Sources
Urban Design is a selective bibliographic research guide to Internet sites and library resources supporting urban design research at UC Berkeley. Many additional resources and reference assistance are available in the Environmental Design Library, 210 Wurster Hall.

UC Berkeley faculty, registered students, and staff who are off campus may use items marked UCB Only or UC Only by using The Library's proxy service or by installing the Connecting@Berkeley CD on their computer.

Last updated: 10 September 2007 Conditions of Use

    Getting Started  What is urban design? Is it a profession? a set of practices? the conceptual stuff that binds together architecture, urban planning, and landscape architecture? Consensus apears to be elusive. For a readable overview of the discipline, see Urban Design, by Jonathan Barnett and Gary Hack, Chapter 13 in The Practice of Local Government Planning, 3rd ed., 2000, pp.307-340; EnvDesign HT167 P7 2000 2 copies, 1 on reserve. In addition, a sampling of classic and contemporary readings in urban design is offered in two recent compilations of similar title: The Urban design reader, Elizabeth MacDonald and Michael Larice, eds. (EnvDesign NA9040 U68 2007) and Urban design reader, Matthew Carmona and Steve Tiesdell, eds. (EnvDesign NA9040 U683 2007).  With only about twenty percent overlap in selections, both are worth perusing.
    Gateway Sites
  1. UMRG links (Univ. of Birmingham (UK),Urban Morphology Research Group) Directory of Web resources relating to urban morphology.
    2. http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/umrg/
  2. Urban design (Cyburbia) Many links to full text papers & other resources for urban design, the new urbanism, etc.
    3. http://www.cyburbia.org/directory/index.php?sid=156796211&t=sub_pages&cat=191

    Organizations  Here is a selection of organizations involved with some aspect of urban design. Many of these sites have full-text reports online, as well as useful related links.
    American Farmland Trust
    http://www.farmland.org/
    American Institute of Architects
    http://www.e-architect.com/
    American Planning Association
    http://www.planning.org/
    American Soc. of Landscape Architects
    http://www.asla.org/
    Center for Livable Communities
    http://www.lgc.org/center/
    Greenbelt Alliance
    http://www.greenbelt.org/
    International Downtown Association
    http://www.ida-downtown.org/     		National Trust for Historic Preservation
    http://www.nthp.org/
    Project for Public Spaces
    http://www.pps.org/
    Society of Architectural Historians  Membership directory available as the December issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, EnvDesign NA11 A83.
    http://www.sah.org/
    Urban Design Group
    http://www.udg.org.uk/
    Urban Morphology Research Group (School of Geography, Univ. of Birmingham, UK)
    http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/umrg/

    Doing Research
    Finding Books | Bibliographies | Finding Journal Articles | Journals | Finding Images | Finding Maps & Aerial Photos
    Finding Books  Here is a selection of subject terms to help locate books, reports, etc., in the online catalogs:
    Architecture -- Human factors
    Architecture and society
    Cities and towns -- Growth
    City planning AND Architecture
    City planning AND Architectural design
    Civic improvement
    Community development -- Urban
    Ecological landscape design
    Gentrification
    Land use -- Planning
    Land use, Urban
    Neighborhood
    Neotraditional development
    Planned communities    		 Regional planning
    SPRAWL:
       Cities and towns -- Growth AND City Planning
       Cities and towns -- Growth AND Suburbs
       Land use, Urban AND Urban policy
       Urban sprawl
    Streets -- Design and construction
    Suburbs
    Sustainable architecture
    Urban beautification
    Urban ecology
    Urban landscape architecture
    Urban renewal
    Urbanization

    Bibliographies

  1. Bibliography, IN: Redesigning cities: principles, practice, implementation, by Jonathan Barnett. Chicago: Planners Press, 2003, pp.295-298. Nicely organized brief bibliography of core readings in urban design.
    EnvDesign HT151 B37 2003
  2. Green design/sustainable architecture: resources  (UC Berkeley, Library) An annotated bibliographic research guide to research resources on sustainable design at the UC Berkeley libraries and on the Web.
    3. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/GreenAll.html
  3. History of city planning (UC Berkeley, Library)  An annotated bibliographic research guide to research resources for the history of planning and urbanization at the UC Berkeley libraries.
    4. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/histplan.html
  4. Sprawl and the New Urbanism (UC Berkeley, Library) A bibliographic research guide for the study of sprawl and the New Urbanism using UC Berkeley library and Web-based resources.
    5. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/sprawl.html
  5. The SPUR reading list (San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association)
    6. http://www.spur.org/resources_bibliography.shtm
  6. The Ten best urban design books ever written?, by Brenton Toderian, IN: Plan Canada, v.43:1 (spring 2003), pp.45-46.
    7. EnvDesign NA9000 P53

    Finding Journal Articles  See City Planning Indexes & Abstracts, Architecture Indexes & Abstracts, and Environmental Planning Indexes & Abstracts for additional indexes. For UC or UC Only titles, go to The Library's home page; go to Find Information and select Articles.

  1. America: history and life - UC Only Contains article abstracts and bibliographical citations of reviews & dissertations on the history and culture of the U.S. and Canada.
    2. Online ed.: 1982--; paper ed.: 1954--, Main E3 A43
  2. Art retrospective & Art Full Text via WilsonWeb - UC Only  Indexes journal articles in art and related fields, including architecture, art history, city planning, urban design, and landscape architecture.
    3. Online ed.: Art Index Retrospective: 1929-1984; ArtAbstracts: 1984--; paper ed.: 1929-1994, EnvDesign N18 A72 Index
  3. Avery index to architectural periodicals via CSA - UC Only  Contains citations to articles in 1,000+ periodicals in architecture, planning, urban design, and related disciplines.
    4. Online ed.: 1890--; paper ed.: 1890-1995, EnvDesign fNA8 C64 1973 Index
  4. Index to historic preservation periodicals (National Trust for Historic Preservation Library) Indexes 325+ preservation journals and newsletters, including local publications such as Oakland Heritage Alliance News, BAHA News, Heritage Newsletter (Foundation for San Francisco's Architectural Heritage) and California Preservation.
    5. Online ed.: 1991--; http://www.lib.umd.edu/NTL/catdat.html; paper ed.: 1979-1990; EnvDesign Z1251 A2 U51 1992 Index
  5. JSTOR - UCB Only A full-text searchable archive of interdisciplinary scholarly journals. Coverage begins with the first date of issue.
    6. Coverage varies
  6. Planetizen A public interest information exchange for the urban planning and development community, the site includes news summaries from current newspaper and journal articles in several broad categories of planning topics, including urban design.
    7. http://planetizen.com/
  7. Sociological abstracts via CSA - UC Only  Indexes journal articles, book chapters, & reviews from over 1,900 journals, books, book chapters, and reviews in the social sciences. Excellent source for public policy topics.
    8. Online ed.: 1963--; paper ed.: 1952--, Main HM15.5 S6

    Journals  Use the Pathfinder online catalog to navigate to the online full-text version these titles.

  1. Journal of industrial ecology via OCLC/FirstSearch - UCB Only
    2. Online ed.: 1999--; paper ed.:  1997--, Engin TD194 J68 Display
  2. Journal of urban design via ProQuest - UCB Only
    3. Online ed.:  1997 (v.2:3)--; paper ed.: 1996--, EnvDesign NA9000 J68
  3. Urban design & preservation quarterly. American Planning Association, Urban Design and Preservation Division. 1987--.
    4. EnvDesign HT166 U222
  4. Urban design international via OCLC/FirstSearch - UCB Only "Aims to build the first international network for all of those involved in the multi-disciplinary tasks of urban design and management."
    5. Coverage: 1996 (v.1:3)--
  5. Urban morphology: journal of the International Seminar on Urban Form.
    6. EnvDesign NA9000 U7263 Unbound & bound journal stacks

    Finding Images  See also the list Image & Sound Databases.
  1. American memory: historical collections for the National Digital Library (U.S. Library of Congress) The collections consist of "primary source and archival materials relating to American culture and history." 40 collections of 1 million+ digitized images searchable on the Web. Includes black-and-white photos, maps, documents, etc.
    2. http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html
  2. California heritage collection (UC Berkeley, Library) An online archive of over 28,000 images illustrating California's history and culture from the collections of The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Part of the Online Archive of California, a compilation of finding aids, or guides, to archival collections at more than 30 institutions.
    3. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CalHeritage/
  3. Cities and buildings database (Univ. of Washington, Depts. of Architecture & Art History) "Contains over 5000 images ranging from New York to Central Asia, from African villages, to the Parc de la Villette, and conceptual sketches and models of Frank Gehry's Experience Music Project. These have all been scanned from original slides or drawn from documents in the public domain."
    4. http://content.lib.washington.edu/cities/
  4. Image sources for the built environment (UC Berkeley, Library)  List of links to image databases and search engines for architecture, landscape, and urban design.
    5. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ENVI/pict.html
  5. NAIL: NARA archival image locator (U.S. Natl. Archives & Records Administration) Searchable database of records in the U.S. Nat'l Archives: print, still photos, film, video, etc.
    6. http://www.archives.gov/
  6. S.P.I.R.O. (UC Berkeley, Architecture Visual Resources Library)  The online public access catalog to approximately 16% of the AVRL's collection of over 200,000 35mm slides.  The collection is available to UCB faculty and graduate students only.
    7. http://shanana.berkeley.edu/spiro/

    Finding Maps & Aerial Photographs  Note that the UCB Earth Sciences & Map Library, 50 McCone Hall, has an outstanding collection of maps, atlases, etc.
    Aerial photos | Atlases | Guidebook Maps | Historical Maps
    Aerial photos

  1. The Earth Sciences & Map Library has an excellent collection of aerial photos of California, including a master index. Some digitized aerial photos of the San Francisco Bay Area are available on The Library's SunSite.
    2. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/EART/AerialPhotos/
  2. Google earth (Google) Offers online satellite imagery, maps, terrain, and 3D buildings.
    http://earth.google.com/
  3. TerraServer (Microsoft Co.) Searchable repository of aerial photographs and satellite images.
    4. http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/

    Atlases & encyclopedias  Consult individual city or regional atlases. Encyclopedias, e.g., Cities of the world (EnvDesign G153.4 C57 v.1-4), often include city plans or maps. See Basic Research Resources for a list of city planning encyclopedias.

    Guidebook maps   Guidebooks are excellent sources of street and site maps. Search the online catalogs:  [place name] guidebooks.  For contemporary guide maps check the Web for online maps, using a gateway site, such as Mapquest to get started.  Use the following titles to identify city plans and maps in older guidebooks; consult the online catalogs to locate copies of the guidebooks.

  1. Index to early twentieth century city plans appearing in guidebooks, Baedeker, Muirhead-Blue guides, Murray, I. J. G. R., etc., ... to provide worldwide coverage of over 2,000 plans to over..., by Harold M. Otness. Santa Cruz: Western Assoc. of MapLibraries, 1978.
    2. EnvDesign G1028 O861 1978 Reference
  2. Index to nineteenth century city plans appearing in guidebooks: Baedeker, Murray, Joanne, Black, Appleton, Meyer, ... to provide coverage of over 1,800 plans to nearly 600 communities, found in..., by Harold M. Otness. Santa Cruz: Western Assoc. of Map Libraries, 1980.
    3. EnvDesign G1028 A12 O86 Reference

    Historical maps

  1. An Atlas of rare city maps: comparative urban design, 1830-1842, by Melville C. Branch.  NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.  Scales differ.  International coverage.
    2. EnvDesign fG1028 B65 1997 Reference
  2. Bird's eye views: historic lithographs of North American cities, by John W. Reps. NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.
    3. EnvDesign fNE2454 R45 1998 Reference & circulating
  3. Civitates orbis terrarum, 1572-1618, [by] Georg Braun & Hogenberg. With an introd. by R. A. Skelton. Amsterdam, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1965. A facsimile edition of the detailed and colored set of maps of 16th century European town plans produced by Georg Braun.
    4. EnvDesign fNA9090 M53 v.1-3, pt.1-6 Rare
  4. -----The City maps of Europe: 16th century town plans from Braun & Hogenberg. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1992. Facsimiles from the original Civitates orbis terrarum in one volume. 60 cities included.
    5. Map Room fG1799 A1 B75 1992 noncir.
  5. U.S. historical city maps (Univ. of Texas, Austin)  Digitized maps from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the Univ. of Texas, Austin.
    6. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/historic_us_cities.html
  6. Views and plans of North American cities: a bibliography of guides to the location of graphic records of urban development prior to 1900, John Reps, comp. [3d ed.] Ithaca, NY: Dept. of City and Regional Planning, Cornell Univ., 1978.
    7. EnvDesign Z6027 A5 R4 1978  Reference; Earth Sci  Z6027 A5 R4 1978

    Practice
    Best Practices | Standards | Case Studies & Projects
    Best Practices

  1. Ahwahnee principles for resource-efficient communities, by Peter Calthorpe, Michael Corbett, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Moule, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Stefanos Polyzoides. Prepared by the Local Government Commission, 1991. These principles helped define the New Urbanism and the smart growth phenomenon.
    2. Online ed.: http://www.lgc.org/ahwahnee/principles.html; paper ed.: EnvDesign HD166 W44 L38 1992, pp.2-4.
  2. New urbanism: comprehensive report & best practices guide, [written and edited by the staff of New Urban News, 3rd ed. Ithaca, NY: New Urban Pub., 2003.
    3. EnvDesign HT175 N58 2003
  3. Rebuilding American communities: reinvestment by design: a collection of best practices, a program of Partners for Livable Cities.  [Washington, DC]: Partners for Livable Communities, 1995.
    4. EnvDesign HT151 R37 1995
  4. Streets and the shaping of towns and cities, by Michael Southworth, Eran Ben-Joseph. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1997. Includes standards for street design.
    5. EnvDesign & Trans TE279 S58 1997
  5. The Urban design handbook: techniques and working methods, by Urban Design Associates; Ray Gindroz, et al., NY: Norton, 2003.
    6. EnvDesign NA9105 U73 2003
  6. Urban design: practices, pedagogies, premises  Proceedings of an April 2002 conference organized by Van Alen Institute and the Urban Design programs of Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Includes detailed descriptions of eight North American urban design programs.
    7. Online ed.: http://www.arch.columbia.edu/gsap-online/files/00/00/00/13100/Conference%20Program.pdf; paper ed.: EnvDesign HT165.5 U72 2002
    Standards
  1. The Code of the city: standards and the hidden language of place making, by Eran Ben-Joseph. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.
    2. EnvDesign HT166 B3974 2005
  2. Planning and urban design standards, by Frederick Steiner, Kent Butler, American Planning Association. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley, 2007.  Online table of contents.
    3. EnvDesign TH2031 S74 2007
  3. SmartCode. V 5.1. [S.l.]: Transect Codeware Co., Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, [2003?] A unified development ordinance that enables Smart Growth community patterns at several scales. Developed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company.
    4. EnvDesign KF5697 A4 2003 Reference & circulating
  4. Time-saver standards for urban design, Donald Watson, Alan Plattus, Robert G. Shibley, eds. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Online table of contents.
    5. EnvDesign HT166 T47 2003 Reference
  5. Urban design: a typology of procedures and products, by Jon Lang. Burlington, MA: Elsevier/Architectural Press, 2005.
    6.  Illustrated with more than 50 case studies. Bibliographical references: pp.397-409.
    EnvDesign HT166 L328 2005
  6. Urban planning and design criteria, by Joseph De Chiara. 3rd ed. NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1982. Answers practical questions arising constantly in urban planning and design. Useful where professional staff is limited. Covers typical conditions in the U.S.
    7. EnvDesign NA9108 D4 Reference

    Case Studies & Projects  Where can you find case studies?
    • Case studies are often published in journal articles, so consult the indexes and journals listed elsewhere in this guide.
    • Some case studies are presented as conference papers, which are sometimes published as part of conference proceedings (see below), as well as in journals.
    • Look for projects that have received formal recognition; awards announcements will usually provide details about a project that may be helpful to you. These announcements are sometimes published in journals, as well as on the Web sites of the organizations making the awards.
    • You may also discover compilations of case studies published as books; start with the Melvyl® online catalog: combine a keyword search describing your topic with a subject search with the phrases case studies or case method.

    Methodology | Case Study Sources
    Methodology
  1. Case study research: design and methods, by Robert K. Yin. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2003.
    2. EnvDesign, Main H62 Y56 2003
  2. Program evaluation: methods and case studies, by Emil J. Posavac, Raymond G. Carey. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.
    3. EnvDesign, Main, Public Hlth H62.5 U5 P62 2003
  3. Qualitative research methods for the social sciences, by Bruce L. Berg, 6th ed. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, 2007. See Chapter 10: Case Studies.
    4. Main H61 B4715 2007; EnvDesign on order

    Case Study Sources

  1. Development case studies (Urban Land Institute) - UCB only  Provides detailed case studies of completed projects ranging from low-income housing to mixed-use downtown developments to commercial and industrial sites. Formerly titled Project reference file, 1971-1997; the older PRF case studies are indexed on the Web by topic and project, 1971-1996, by the MIT Rotch Library.
    • Request User ID and Password at the Environmental Design Library Reference Desk. 
    • IMPORTANT: Click the LOGOUT button after every session; otherwise the database is unavailable to everyone.
    Online ed.: 1985-; http://research.uli.org/DK/CaStd/re_CaStd_DevCsStd_fst.html; paper ed.: 1971-1997; EnvDesign NA9000 U725 P7 Reference
  2. Downtowns: revitalizing the centers of small urban communities, Michael A. Burayidi, ed. NY: Routledge, 2001.
    EnvDesign HT175 D69 2001
  3. Honor awards for urban design (American Institute of Architects)  Includes images of projects.
    4. http://www.e-architect.com/
  4. PapersFirst via FirstSearch/OCLC - UC Only  Contains 580,000+ citations for papers presented at worldwide conferences, symposia, meetings, expositions, congresses, and workshops received at The British Library. Excellent source for interdisciplinary work; the index covers disciplines in the social sciences, sciences, arts, and the humanities.
    5. Coverage: October 1993--
  5. Proceedings via FirstSearch/OCLC - UC Only Indexes worldwide conferences, symposia, meetings, expositions, and congresses, covering a wide variety of disciplines.
    6. Coverage: 1993--
  6. Urban design: a typology of procedures and products, by Jon Lang. Burlington, MA: Elsevier/Architectural Press, 2005. Illustrated with more than 50 case studies.
    7. EnvDesign HT166 L328 2005
  7. Urban planning today: a Harvard design magazine reader, William S. Saunders, ed. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2006. Online table of contents.
    8. EnvDesign HT166 U7433 2006

    Compiled by Deborah Sommer
    City Planning & Landscape Architecture Librarian
    Environmental Design Library
    Originally compiled in 1997

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