Praise for Street Design
“This book should be required reading in schools of urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture, and an understanding of it should be part of the licensing requirements for civil, traffic, and transportation engineers.” – Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, DPZ CoDesign, former Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Miami.
“I am delighted by the eloquence, knowledge, thoroughness, and basic common sense of Street Design, which is at once a how-to book and an ode to the beauty and wonder of cities. Much more than a formula for how to design streets, this book helps us understand that there are no simple answers or all-purpose solutions to the challenge of city-building.” – Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer-Prize-winning Contributing Editor at Vanity Fair, formerly at the New Yorker and the New York Times.
“A revolution in street design is unfolding across America…. Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns is the revolution’s handbook. Its promise is clear: invest in urban streets that slow vehicles down and create shared spaces where pedestrians feel safe and comfortable, and your neighborhoods shall prosper. This encyclopedia of beautiful and profitable streets belongs in the hands of every designer, developer, and planner seeking to create sustainable development projects…
In the final analysis, this book makes unique and valuable contributions both to urban design and to sustainable development. Creating more great streets means more people will be attracted to urban living, where they will be able to walk and bike more, reducing sprawl and air pollution from commuting by automobile, and resulting in smaller urban footprints with fewer negative climate change impacts. This is a revolution that benefits everyone.” — David R. Godschalk, Urban Land Magazine, ULI.
“This is the best book ever written about designing streets.” — John Norquist, former Mayor of Milwaukee and former CEO and President of the Congress for New Urbanism.
“I have a copy of Street Design permanently by my desk, and I learned more from it than from any other book on its subject.” — Samuel C.P. Hughes, Director of Research, UK Office of Place
“This book could change the way people see the streets in their towns and cities. And it could help those towns and cities make streets for people, rather than their cars.” — Mayor Joe Riley, Charleston, South Carolina
“Beautiful streets and the arteries of great places. This splendid book is their bible: part philosophy, part pattern book, part history, part “how to” guide. Anyone interested in creating and stewarding places to be popular and prosperous should read it.” – Nicholas Boys Smith, Chair, Create Streets and Office for Place
“This fine book by Massengale and Dover is a treasure map to the long-buried trove of knowledge, skill, and principle needed to build better places for the human project to dwell in.” — from the Afterword by James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and The City in Mind
“Yes, Happy City is a call to action, but John Massengale’s and Victor Dover’s Street Design is the manual.” — Charles Montgomery, author of The Happy City
“Street Design is an excellent way to introduce students with a little design background to practical issues in urban design. Thanks to the book, I see them in discussions making the connection between beauty, comfort, function, and safety in ways that would be otherwise difficult. The first chapter is an excellent resource for laying out the basics of street design, and the whole book is full of clear and illuminating examples. Anybody with an interest in urbanism should have this book readily at hand.” — Professor David Brain, New College of Florida
“John Massengale, the man who taught me everything I know about architecture.” — Tom Wolfe, author of From Bauhaus to Our House, The Painted Word, and The Kandy-Kolored, Tangerine Flake, Streamline Baby
“Give John Massengale the necessary traités and cartes blanches and he will design every square foot of terra firma firm enough to support a Mitsubishi Green Elf for you.” — Tom Wolfe, author of From Bauhaus to Our House, The Painted Word, and The Kandy-Kolored, Tangerine Flake, Streamline Baby
“Street Design is a lucid, practical and altogether indispensable guide for envisioning and creating vibrant 21st-century towns and cities. It should be required reading for every local political leader, planner, architect, real estate developer and engaged urban citizen in America.” — Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360 and author of True Believers
“The best streets in the world’s villages, towns, and cities—whether modest or grand—continually remind one that simplicity is part of the recipe for success in this art. The advice of Victor Dover and John Massengale, their historic examples and their own designs, reflect that simplicity.” — from the Foreword by HRH Prince Charles
“I knew Street Design would be good, I just didn’t know how good.” – Andrés Duany, DPZ coDESIGN
“Part instruction manual, part history, part manifesto, the book argues that it is the street, more than anything, that shapes the city. In traveling to cities around the world and interviewing residents, pedestrians and businesspeople, Dover and Massengale found a remarkable degree of agreement about which streets are nice and which are not. ‘If there is so much consensus on what makes a good street,’ they ask, ‘then why are we still building so many bad and ugly ones?’” — Henry Grabar, Salon
“Street Design is one of the best books I have gotten my hands on for people that care or should care about creating Thriving Communities for People and Prosperity. This book should be used in every local jurisdiction and university across the nation and globe.” — Bryan Jones, Public Works Director, Fremont, California
“This book is exactly what we need at this time – a guide for how to design streets that are human scale, hospitable to people, and designed to enhance the public realm. It is sure to become an instant classic.” — Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard, Director, International Making Cities Livable Conferences
Victor Dover and John Massengale have just delivered the definitive reference volume on how to make our streets great…. Indeed, I would take it a step further and say that the authors are not just designers but sages on the elements of great cities, towns, and neighborhoods…. If you love cities, you’ll love the book and, just like I have, enjoy flipping through its chapters, learning something important on every page.” — Kaid Benfield, Special counsel for urban solutions, NRDC; co-founder, Smart Growth America coalition; author of several books on smart growth and sprawl
“What an amazing resource! For those who wish that my book, Walkable City, had pictures, this is the book for you. If either your work or your play includes the making of places, you will find Street Design to be an invaluable tool.” — Jeff Speck, AICP, CNU-A, LEED-AP, Hon. ASLA
“Your charrette traveling library must include the important Street Design book by Victor Dover and John Massengale.” — Bill Lennertz, Executive Director, National Charrette Institute
“Communities are competing for young workers who want great neighborhoods. Until now, the role of streets in creating great places has been hidden in plain sight. After this book, you won’t look at your favorite street the same way again.” — Geoff Anderson, President, Smart Growth America
“Street Design conveys a vast amount of information and does so with wit, intelligence, and subtlety. Every New Urbanist, bike lane advocate and Complete Streets proponent should read this magnificent book.” — Philip Langdon, Better! Cities & Towns
“Street Design is an inimitable, valid resource for professional planners and designers in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. This publication will undoubtedly stand the test of time and remain a pertinent resource for many years to come.” — Josh Martin, Director of Planning, City of Charlesto
