FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT
Anthony Flint
617-661-3016 x116 (Lincoln Institute)
Carla J. Potts
413-545-2217 (University of Massachusetts Press)
THE HUMANE METROPOLIS EXAMINES THE LIVABLE CITY
Collection of essays was based on Lincoln Institute-sponsored conference
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – With millions of Americans and fully half of the world’s population living in urban areas, a new emphasis is emerging to make cities more habitable, healthy, safe and green, according to The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st-Century City, a new book published this fall by the University of Massachusetts Press in association with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
The book, edited by Rutherford H. Platt, professor of geography and director of the Ecological Cities Project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is a collection of 23 essays from contributors including Carl Anthony of the Ford Foundation, landscape architect Thomas Balsley, Harvard urban planning professor Jerold Kayden, physical activity specialist Anne Lusk, climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig and many others.
Taking as a point of departure the legacy of urbanist William H. (Holly) Whyte, The Humane Metropolis explores urban parks and public spaces, ecological restoration, social equity and green design. The collection of essays, which grew out of presentations at a 2002 conference in New York sponsored by the Lincoln Institute, includes a 22-minute companion film on DVD.
“Platt’s essayists provide nourishment—like good bagels—to anybody taking a pause on a bench,
in Holly Whyte’s way, to consider the city as an evolving organism responsive to intelligent leadership.”
— Roger G. Kennedy, Director Emeritus, National Museum of American History
“The Humane Metropolis introduces a new generation to William H. Whyte’s visionary ideas on the role of nature in the city, and outlines the steps we must take to strike a balance between humans and nature in America’s 21st-century urban areas.”
—Robert D. Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association and Practice Professor, University of Pennsylvania
The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st-Century City
University of Massachusetts Press 368 pp., 57 illus.
$27.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-554-1
$80.00 library cloth, ISBN 1-55849-553-3
www.umpress.umass.edu
Review copies: Carla J. Potts, potts@umpress.umass.edu
The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, founded in 1974, is the nation’s premiere research institution on land use and taxation. Visit www.lincolninst.edu.
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