Civitas by Design: Building Better Communities, from the Garden City to the New Urbanism

Gillette's book is an excellent source for getting a basic overview of urban planning in the United States. Gillette covers all of the major urban design movements from 1890 to 1990 and how each movement worked out or build the foundation for the next movement in line. Students of urban history must read this book. Illustrations included are excellent too.

Howard Gillette has tracked the ideas of urban planning and matched them up with its accomplishments, and draws some lessons -- mostly of the clear drawbacks and the limitations of theory in practice. He gave me a much deeper perspective on the players and the ideas, the attempts and the practical lessons learned in the reality of people's experience.