Resources
A variety of books, videos, and other resources to help you understand the importance and relevance of good urban and transportation planning to your life in Birmingham.
The Most Segregated City in America
City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920-1980
Charles E. Connerly's studies Birmingham's use of urban planning as an excuse to implement racial zoning laws. He effectively uses Birmingham's history as an example to argue the importance of recognizing the link that exists between city planning and civil rights.
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Connerly's demonstration of how Birmingham's race-based planning legacy led to the confrontations that culminated in the city's struggle for civil rights provides a fresh lens on the history and future of urban planning, and its relation to race.
Arbitrary Lines
How Zoning Broke the American City and How To Fix It
What if scrapping one flawed policy could bring US cities closer to addressing debilitating housing shortages, stunted growth and innovation, persistent racial and economic segregation, and car-dependent development?
In Arbitrary Lines, Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common confusions and myths about how American cities regulate growth and examining the major contemporary critiques of zoning. Gray sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city.
Not Just Bikes - Introduction to Strong Towns
This twelve video playlist introduces you to the relationship between the financial aspects of how cities work and the planning a realization of the built environment. Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes give you the lowdown on how cities have become financially insolvent, and how methods and insights from Strong Towns can help bring cities back from a the cycle of wasteful, sprawling development and maintain their own infrastructure in a sustainable way.