Urban Mobility Books

Transforming Urban Living: Must-Read Books for Creating Livable, Walkable, Cyclable, and Transit-Friendly Cities 

I've curated a selection of captivating books that one can read to understand how renowned transportation professionals bring the changes to make cities more livable and enjoyable.

• A History of Street Networks: from Grids to Sprawl and Beyond (Laurence Aurbach)

• Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving (Peter Norton)

• Back on My Bike: How Cycling Transformed My Life after Sixty (Tom Eastham)

• Better Busies Better Cities (Steven Higashide) 

• Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance (Adonia E. Lugo)

• Bike Nation (Peter Walker)

• Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality (Melissa Bruntlett and Chris Bruntlett)

• Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life (Jane Jacobs)

• Cities for People (Jan Gehl (Author), Lord Richard Rogers (Foreword))

• Confession of a Recovering Engineer (Charles L. Marohn, Jr.)

• Crossings - How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet (Ben Goldfarb)

• Curbing Traffic (Chris Bruntlett, Melissa Bruntlett)

• Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World (Wade Graham)

• Every Inch of the Way; My Bike Ride Around the World (Tom Bruce)

• Fighting Traffic (Peter D. Norton)

• From Mobility to Accessibility: Transforming Urban Transportation and Land-Use Planning (Jonathan Levin, Joe Grengs, and Louis A. Merlin)

• Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability (David Owen)

• Happy City (Charles Montgomery)

• Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives (Jarrett Walker)

• Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World (Jennifer S. Vey (Author), Nate Storring (Author))

• Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities (Veronica Davis (Author), Tamika L Butler (foreword))

• Invisible Women (Caroline Criado Perez)

• It's All About the Bike (Robert Penn)

• Missing Middle Housing: Thinking Big and Building Small to Respond to Today’s Housing Crisis (Daniel G. Parolek)

• Mobility 2040: Exploring the Emerging Trends Radically Transforming Transportation Systems in the US (Galo Bowen)

• Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives (Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet)

• One Man and His Bike: A Life-Changing Journey All the Way Around the Coast of Britain (Mike Carter)

• Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities (Alain Bertaud)

• Parking and the City (Donald Shoup)

• Parking Reform Made Easy (Richard W. Willson (Author), Donald C. Shoup (Foreword))

• Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World (Henry Grabar)

• Pocket Neighborhoods (Ross Chapin)

• Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One (Majora Carter)

• Restorative Cities (Jenny Roe (Author), Layla McCay (Author))

• Roadways for People: Rethinking Transportation Planning and Engineering (Lynn Peterson (Author), Elizabeth Doerr (Author), Janette Sadik-Khan (foreword))

• Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation (Paris Marx)

• Soft City (David Sim)

• Strong Towns (Charles L. Marohn, Jr.)

• Street Smart (Samuel I Schwartz)

• Suburban Nation (Andres Duany, ‎Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, ‎Jeff Speck)

• Strap Hanger (Taras Grescoe)

• Street Design (Victor Dover, ‎John Massengale)

• Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution (Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow)

• Sustainable Nation (Douglas Farr)

• Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature (Douglas Farr)

• Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term (Mike Lydon, Anthony Garcia, Andres Duany)

• The 15-minute City: A Solution for Saving Our Time and Our Planet ( Carlos Moreno (Author), Jan Gehl (Foreword))

• The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Jane Jacobs)

• The Affordable City: Strategies for Putting Housing Within Reach (and Keeping it There) (Shane Phillips)

• The Art of Classic Planning – Building Beautiful and Enduring Communities (Nir H. Buras)

• The Boulevard Book: History, Evolution, Design of Multiway Boulevards (Allan B. Jacobs, Elizabeth MacDonald, and Yodan Rofe)

• The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning (Le Corbusier)

• The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Richard Rothstein)

• The Economy of Cities (Jane Jacobs)

• The Great American Transit Disaster: A Century of Austerity, Auto-Centric Planning, and White Flight (Historical Studies of Urban America) (Nicholas Dagen Bloom (Author))

• Great Good Place (Ray Oldenburg)

• The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis, Diagnosis and Cure (Victor Gruen)

• The High Cost of Free Parking (Donald Shoup)

• The Image of the City (Kevin Lynch)

• The New Mobility Handbook: Rethinking How We Get Around Cities (Michele Kyrouz)

• The Smart Growth Manual (Andres Duany (Author), Jeff Speck (Author), Mike Lydon (Author))

• There Are No Accidents (Jessie Singer)

• Traffic (Tom Vanderbilt)

• Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age (Paul Mees)

• Triumph of the City: How Urban Spaces Make Us Human (Edward Glaeser)

• Urban Grids: Handbook for Regular City Design (Joan Busquets (Author), Dingliang Yang (Author), Michael Keller (Designer))

• Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities (Tim Gill)

• Urban Playground: What Kids Say About Living in San Francisco (Katie Burke)

• Urban Street Design Guide (National Association of City Transport Officials)

• Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time (Jeff Speck)

• Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places (Jeff Speck)

• Works: Anatomy of a City (Kate Ascher)

• X and the City (John A. Adam)