![\"\"](\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2010\/08\/E_Bernays-1928-propaganda.png\" "\\"Edward")
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With the dog days of summer lazily creeping up on us, there remain but a few weeks left to accomplish that summer reading that you so longed to do.<\/p>\n
Remember? The promise you made back in May to read the complete works of Dostoevsky? Or to brush up on your 17th century French literature? And how about that attempt to become acquainted with the great works of philosophy? It was an ambitious commitment but let\u2019s be serious: you and I know none if it is going to get done.<\/p>\n
Planetizen<\/a>, the urban planning, design, and development website, publishes its own annual TOP 10 in urban planning literature<\/a>. For those more ambitious, it has listed its TOP 20 urban planning books of all time<\/a>. And while every book on that tally is an obvious must-read (Hello Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson, I\u2019m talking to you!), I would like to take this time to share a few books that, if I were a professor, I would be assigning as mandatory reading:<\/p>\n 1. Invisible Cities<\/strong><\/a> by Italo Calvino<\/em> What if cities could be whatever we desire? Invisible Cities ruminates upon this question \u2013 so come on in city lovers! It\u2019s got white cities, black cities, Spanish cities, yellow cities, it\u2019s got hot cities, cold cities, it\u2019s got wet cities, it\u2019s got smelly cities, it\u2019s got hairy cities, bloody cities, it\u2019s got snappin’ cities, it\u2019s got silk cities, velvet cities, \u2026 If this book don’t got it, you don’t want it! What if cities really could be whatever we desired? Why can\u2019t cities be whatever we desire?<\/p>\n 2. Traffic in Towns<\/strong> by Sir Colin Buchanan<\/em> As the old saying goes: “You\u2019ve gotta know where you come from to know where you are going.” I always get a kick out of seeing the crazy schemes<\/a> people were concocting back in the old days; like the shit they thought up at the world\u2019s fairs \u2013 back when world\u2019s fairs were relevant. Man! What were they smoking? And where can I score me some? We all should thank our lucky stars that most of this nonsense did not see fruition and the remnants of this quackery are slowly being dismantled<\/a>. But the more modest proposals remain steadfast. Why are we so quick to segregate cars from bikes from pedestrians from living? Take a gander at the most influential document to come out of England since the Magna Carta.<\/p>\n 3. Propaganda<\/a><\/strong> by Edward Bernays<\/em> \u00ab We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. \u00bb<\/p>\n A colleague informed me of a 1960\u2019s-era documentary discussing the construction of our beautiful Ville-Marie expressway in Montreal. An elderly Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois woman is asked to relate her feelings about her changing habitat. Gone were the parks, the green space, the trees, the playing children in the streets. Her response? She loved the expressway in her backyard. She loved the fumes of the cars which will cut her life short. She loved the sound of the traffic buzzing by her window; it allowed her to be a part of the modernizing Montreal. Why did she spout such connerie<\/em>? Because it\u2019s what she’s been told to believe. And now she believes it.<\/p>\n Every stupid decision that the masses swallow with their milk, Maalox, and dry martinis is due to propaganda. In this Bible of human behaviour, Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, and the father of public relations, shows us not only how we are no different from one of the dogs hanging out at Pavlov\u2019s place, but also how important propaganda is to sustain our democracy.<\/p>\n I suggest: Learn the power of propaganda to further your cause against The Man before The Man uses it against you.<\/p>\n 4. The Virgin Suicides<\/strong> by Jeffrey Eugenides<\/em> Whenever I visit my parent\u2019s home, out in the suburbs, the same feeling comes over me – The sweaty palms. The tightness in the chest. The difficulty breathing. I feel all angsty, like I were 15 again: listening to the classics like Pearl Jam, Portishead, and the Notorious B.I.G.; imagining I were Jeremy, speaking in class again.<\/p>\n I can safely say that I am no fan of the suburbs. I find the surroundings stifling, the people perfunctory, and the development devastating. But the fact is, the suburbs have come to define the modern North American city; the portrait of which has been painted in this novel is incredibly haunting. Out there, no one gives a damn about you, your family, or themselves. And yet, here in the CMM, people are still flocking to the suburbs in droves. Why? See Book #3.<\/p>\n 5. From Bauhaus to Our House<\/strong> by Tom Wolfe<\/em> Everyone\u2019s a critic. That\u2019s for sure. But when someone points out how everyone despises the architecture surrounding them, that\u2019s not what I call delivering a critique \u2013 that\u2019s what I call stating a fact.<\/p>\n More known for his work on 1980\u2019s New York and American college co-eds, Tom Wolfe pens an often laugh-out-loud depiction of our relationship with our built environment. The question remains: if we hate it so much, why do we continue to put up with it? Alas, the very same question can be posed of most modern phenomena in urban planning.<\/p>\n 6. The Street<\/a><\/strong> by Mordecai Richler<\/em><\/p>\n Ok. So I lied. There are actually 6 books on this list; I included this one for selfish reasons. Like the characters in this collection of short stories, I too live on St-Urbain. And it astonishes me that the life and the heart and the spirit described in this book existed on what has now essentially become a one-way expressway into downtown. I included this book in hopes that enough of us read it and demand that we return our neighbourhoods to a state where we can actually live in them. Minus the working-class poverty of course – this is afterall, The Plateau<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n\u00ab When he enters the territory of which Eutropia is the capital, the traveller sees not one city but many, of equal size and not unlike one another, scattered over a vast, rolling plateau. Eutropia is not one, but all these cities together; only one is inhabited at a time, the others are empty; and this procession is carried out in rotation. \u00bb<\/p>\n
\n\u00ab Unless steps are taken, the motor vehicle will defeat its own utility and bring about a disastrous degradation of the surroundings for living. \u00bb<\/p>\n
\n\u00ab The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. \u00bb<\/p>\n
\n\u00ab After that night, people spoke of the Lisbon girls in the past tense, and if they mentioned Mary at all it was with the veiled wish that she would hurry up and get it over with. \u00bb<\/p>\n
\n\u00ab Every child goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse. \u00bb<\/p>\n