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Victor Gruen was one of the twentieth century’s most influential architects and is regarded as the father of the U.S. shopping mall. In spring 1979, less than a year before his death, he began reconstructing his life story. Now available in English for the first time, Shopping Town is the long overdue account of a man whose work fundamentally altered the course of city development. Shopping Town opens in Vienna in 1938 with the Anschluss—the turning point in Gruen’s life—as he narrowly escaped the Nazi regime. A few years later, in the suburbs of postwar America, the Jewish refugee sought to reproduce the vitality of Vienna’s city center and invented the commercial apparatus now known as the shopping mall. Gruen’s Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota, was the first fully enclosed shopping center in America. He then translated the concept to economically neglected city centers, setting the path for pedestrian zones and fighting passionately for an urban ideal without compromise. Highlighting Gruen’s sense of humor as well as reflections on the complex forces that sustained the postwar transformation of American cities, Shopping Town embeds Gruen’s experiences and perspectives in a wider social and political context while helping us understand his problematic place in American architectural culture. With afterwords by his son and daughter, Shopping Town closes with Anette Baldauf’s richly insightful essay on the legacy of Victor Gruen.

Look at any list of America’s top foodie cities and you probably won’t find Boise, Idaho or Sitka, Alaska. Yet they are the new face of the food movement. Healthy, sustainable fare is changing communities across this country, revitalizing towns that have been ravaged by disappearing industries and decades of inequity. What sparked this revolution? To find out, Mark Winne traveled to seven cities not usually considered revolutionary. He broke bread with brew masters and city council members, farmers and philanthropists, toured start-up incubators and homeless shelters. What he discovered was remarkable, even inspiring. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, once a company steel town, investment in the arts has created a robust new market for local restaurateurs. In Alexandria, Louisiana, “one-stop shopping” food banks help clients apply for health insurance along with SNAP benefits. In Jacksonville, Florida, aeroponics are bringing fresh produce to a food desert. Over the course of his travels, Winne experienced the power of individuals to transform food and the power of food to transform communities. The cities of Food Town, USA remind us that innovation is ripening all across the country, especially in the most unlikely places.

From Anchorage to Washington D.C., take a trip through America’s well-loved cities with this unique A-Z like no other, lavishly illustrated and annotated with key cultural icons, from famous people and inventions to events, food, and monuments. Explore skyscraper streets, museum miles, local food trucks, and city parks of the United States of America and discover more than 2,000 facts that celebrate the people, culture, and diversity that have helped make America what it is today. Cities include Anchorage • Atlanta • Austin • Baltimore • Birmingham • Boise • Boston • Burlington • Charleston • Charlotte • Cheyenne • Chicago • Cleveland • Columbus • Denver • Detroit • Hartford • Honolulu • Houston • Indianapolis • Jacksonville • Kansas City • Las Vegas • Little Rock • Los Angeles • Louisville • Memphis • Miami • Milwaukee • Minneapolis-St. Paul • Nashville • New Orleans • New York • Newark • Newport • Oklahoma City • Philadelphia • Phoenix • Pittsburgh • Portland, ME • Portland, OR • Rapid City • Salt Lake City • San Francisco • Santa Fe • Seattle • St. Louis • Tucson • Virginia Beach • Washington, D.C. The 50 States series of books for young explorers celebrates the USA and the wider world with key facts and fun activities about the people, history, and natural environments that make each location within them uniquely wonderful. Beautiful illustrations, maps, and infographics bring the places to colorful life. Also available from the series:The 50 States, The 50 States: Activity Book, The 50 States: Fun Facts, 50 Trailblazers of the 50 States, 50 Maps of the World, 50 Adventures in the 50 States, 50 Maps of the World Activity Book, Only in America!, and We Are the 50 States.

A revealing examination of small-town life More than thirty million Americans live in small, out-of-the-way places. Many of them could have joined the vast majority of Americans who live in cities and suburbs. They could live closer to more lucrative careers and convenient shopping, a wider range of educational opportunities, and more robust health care. But they have opted to live differently. In Small-Town America, we meet factory workers, shop owners, retirees, teachers, clergy, and mayors—residents who show neighborliness in small ways, but who also worry about everything from school closings and their children's futures to the ups and downs of the local economy. Drawing on more than seven hundred in-depth interviews in hundreds of towns across America and three decades of census data, Robert Wuthnow shows the fragility of community in small towns. He covers a host of topics, including the symbols and rituals of small-town life, the roles of formal and informal leaders, the social role of religious congregations, the perception of moral and economic decline, and the myriad ways residents in small towns make sense of their own lives. Wuthnow also tackles difficult issues such as class and race, abortion, homosexuality, and substance abuse. Small-Town America paints a rich panorama of individuals who reside in small communities, finding that, for many people, living in a small town is an important part of self-identity.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made.... They have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment" —The New York Times • The basis for the HBO documentary streaming on HBO Max For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.

A brilliant, kaleidoscopic narrative of Oklahoma City—a great American story of civics, basketball, and destiny, from award-winning journalist Sam Anderson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Chicago Tribune • San Francisco Chronicle • The Economist • Deadspin Oklahoma City was born from chaos. It was founded in a bizarre but momentous “Land Run” in 1889, when thousands of people lined up along the borders of Oklahoma Territory and rushed in at noon to stake their claims. Since then, it has been a city torn between the wild energy that drives its outsized ambitions, and the forces of order that seek sustainable progress. Nowhere was this dynamic better realized than in the drama of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team’s 2012-13 season, when the Thunder’s brilliant general manager, Sam Presti, ignited a firestorm by trading future superstar James Harden just days before the first game. Presti’s all-in gamble on “the Process”—the patient, methodical management style that dictated the trade as the team’s best hope for long-term greatness—kicked off a pivotal year in the city’s history, one that would include pitched battles over urban planning, a series of cataclysmic tornadoes, and the frenzied hope that an NBA championship might finally deliver the glory of which the city had always dreamed. Boom Town announces the arrival of an exciting literary voice. Sam Anderson, former book critic for New York magazine and now a staff writer at the New York Times magazine, unfolds an idiosyncratic mix of American history, sports reporting, urban studies, gonzo memoir, and much more to tell the strange but compelling story of an American city whose unique mix of geography and history make it a fascinating microcosm of the democratic experiment. Filled with characters ranging from NBA superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook; to Flaming Lips oddball frontman Wayne Coyne; to legendary Great Plains meteorologist Gary England; to Stanley Draper, Oklahoma City's would-be Robert Moses; to civil rights activist Clara Luper; to the citizens and public servants who survived the notorious 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, Boom Town offers a remarkable look at the urban tapestry woven from control and chaos, sports and civics.

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.

Featuring 53 towns new to this edition, this book lists the most art-friendly small communities throughout the United States and in several Canadian provinces.