It is always fun to begin a book, decide after 10 or 11 pages that it is a real clunker, and then while lumbering forward discover something truly wonderful.
By Gregory L. Heller. Foreword by Alexander Garvin. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013, 290 pages, $36. Power Broker Ed Bacon was born, raised, and—except for a brief stint in Flint, Michigan—spent his long career in Philadelphia. Gregory L. Heller notes in fascinating detail every post and position Bacon held, every colleague, boss, opponent, mayor, and governor who crossed paths with him. More than a biography, this book is the story of mid-20th-century planning, complete with the passions and dogma that attended it, as told through one man in one city. In doing this, Heller answers the question still posed about
Edited by Ricky Burdett and Devan Sudjic. London: Phaidon Press, 2011, 432 pages, $69. Seldom does a book make me actively angry, but Living in the Endless City did. When it arrived with the heft and size of a concrete block, I thought it was an architectural sample. Actually, it is a collection of essays by 38 contributors from conferences on world cities held by the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank‘s Alfred Herrhausen Society. The book focuses on Mumbai, Sao Paolo and Istanbul. As such, it is a companion piece to an earlier effort published by the same sponsors called The
