Everyday Urbanism: Michigan Debates on Urbanism I

by Michael Speaks

Everyday Urbanism is one of three books in the "Michigan Debates on Urbanism" series that also features New Urbanism and Post Urbanism . Each book represents a distinct, inevitable, but still-emerging paradigm in contemporary urbanism, and is an elaboration on public debates held at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning during the winter of 2004. In this volume Margaret Crawford, co-author of Everyday Urbanism and Professor of Architecture at Harvard University, is the protagonist. She presents the case for an informal, bottom-up urbanism that celebrates and builds on everyday, ordinary life and reality, with little pretense about the possibility of a tidy or ideal built environment. Michael Speaks, Graduate Program Director at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and a widely published author, is the respondent. Rahul Mehrotra, Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Michigan and award-winning Bombay designer, introduces and moderates the exchange.

80 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2005

Reviews

[Shruti Kasarekar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I share Rahul Mehrotra's observation on the american obsession with farmer's market. So Rahul’s perspective is great in the book. Everyday urbanism lacks the formality of any other type of “urbanism”, lacking scale, beauty & intention. But the human scale makes it successful in everyday situations. I still feel only borderline convinced about its effectiveness over time and the resulting informality.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't read Crawford's book of the same title. This portion of the triple Michigan debates was somewhat interesting but the process of point/counterpoint between Crawford and Speaks pretty much breaks down by the time Q and A begins. Quick read anyway.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rahul Mehrotra and Margaret Crawford are bomb af but Michael Speaks is a tad useless lol