Place and Prosperity
How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate
216 pages
6 x 9
15 photos and illustrations
Book Description
There are few more powerful questions than, “Where are you from” or “Where do you live?” People feel intensely connected to cities as places and to other people who feel that same connection. In order to understand place – and understand human settlements generally – it is important to understand that places are not created by accident. They are created in order to further a political or economic agenda. Better cities emerge when the people who shape them think more broadly and consciously about the places they are creating. In Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate, urban planning expert William Fulton takes an engaging look at the process by which these decisions about places are made, how cities are engines of prosperity, and how place and prosperity are deeply intertwined. Fulton has been writing about cities over his forty-year career that includes working as a journalist, professor, mayor, planning director, and the director of an urban think tank in one of America’s great cities. Place and Prosperity is a curated collection of his writings with new and updated selections and framing material.
Though the essays in Place and Prosperity are in some ways personal, drawing on Fulton’s experience in learning and writing about cities, their primary purpose is to show how these two ideas – place and prosperity – lie at the heart of what a city is and, by extension, what our society is all about. Fulton shows how, over time, a successful place creates enduring economic assets that don’t go away and lay the groundwork for prosperity in the future. But for urbanism to succeed, all of us have to participate in making cities great places for everybody. Because cities, imposing though they may be as physical environments, don’t work without us.
Cities are resilient. They’ve been buffeted over the decades by White flight, decay, urban renewal, unequal investment, increasingly extreme weather events, and now the worst pandemic in a century, and they’re still going strong. Fulton shows that at their best, cities not only inspire and uplift us, but they make our daily life more convenient, more fulfilling – and more prosperous.
Review Quotes
"It’s the subtle relationship between wealth and sense of place that has long fascinated William Fulton, who comes as close to being an urban renaissance man as anyone in my experience....Now he has written a book that outlines his urban vision in what amounts to a simple equation: Place plus prosperity equals a successful community. One without the other makes a community that has failed to achieve its highest purpose."
Governing
"Place and Prosperity is a thought-provoking resource for practicing planners and academics alike. Fulton utilizes experiences throughout his career and life and relates them to development trends in various cities throughout the U.S. The book contains innovative suggestions ranging from making cities less reliant on personal automobiles to introducing middle housing into suburban commercial and office centers."
Journal of Urban Affairs
"Place and Prosperity reminds me of Bill Fulton himself: straight-forward and interestingly nuanced, deeply insightful and provocatively contrarian, sometimes skeptical and always hopeful. Fulton's gift is that he understands people and therefore understands cities. He connects the quest for prosperity, peace, and freedom in our society to the quality of life in our urban places. This book is actually a chronicle of his life envisioning livable communities in order to create better chances in life for everyone."
Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and former mayor of San Antonio, Texas
"In his new collection of essays, Bill Fulton gives readers new to urbanism a set of magic goggles for reading places and understanding why they like some, and not others. For practitioners like me, he reminds us of how economic development should be thought of as a chance to co-invest in making the city, large or small, a greater physical place – creating a park, widening sidewalks, developing a key transit site to better connect to surrounding neighborhoods. Companies may come and go, but great cities are beloved places of enduring value."
Harriet Tregoning, former Planning Director of Washington DC and Director of the New Urban Mobility alliance (NUMO)
"This book is both Fulton’s Bildungsroman—tracing the arc of his intellectual development—and the chronicle of the great urban comeback of America’s cities. Fulton is the only urban thinker of our time who combines the sharp eye of a journalist, the objective rigor of an academic, and the practical experience of a leader."
Rick Cole, Executive Director of the Congress for the New Urbanism and former Mayor of Pasadena, California
Contents
Foreword by Rick Cole
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: Place
1. The Making of an Urbanist
2. The Thinning Metropolis
3. The Garden Suburb and the New Urbanism
4. The Autocratic Citizen of Philadelphia
5. Having No Car but Plenty of Cars
6. Tom Hayden’s Cars
7. Talk City
8. Why I’m Scared to Walk in Houston
9. My Favorite Street
Part 2: Prosperity
10. Romancing the Smokestack
11. Company Town
12. The Case for Subsidizing the Mermaid Bar
13. Kotkin versus Florida
14. Houston, We Have a Gentrification Problem
Part 3: The Promised Land
15. The Long Drive
16. The California Attitude
17. The Not-So-Reluctant Metropolis
18. Living the 2 Percent Life
19. My Los Angeles
Conclusion: On the Morning after the Pandemic
Acknowledgments
Credits
About the Author
Index
Events
IN PERSON - William Fulton - PLACE AND PROSPERITY
IN PERSON - William Fulton - PLACE AND PROSPERITY
Tuesday, 6 September 2022 - 6:30pm
Brazos Bookstore
2421 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005
United StatesWilliam Fulton in conversation with Luis Guajardo.
Please note: face masks are required to attend the event.
There are few more powerful questions than, “Where are you from” or “Where do you live?” People feel intensely connected to cities as places and to other people who feel that same connection. In order to understand place – and understand human settlements generally – it is important to understand that places are not created by accident. They are created in order to further a political or economic agenda. Better cities emerge when the people who shape them think more broadly and consciously about the places they are creating. In Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate, urban planning expert William Fulton takes an engaging look at the process by which these decisions about places are made, how cities are engines of prosperity, and how place and prosperity are deeply intertwined. Fulton has been writing about cities over his forty-year career that includes working as a journalist, professor, mayor, planning director, and the director of an urban think tank in one of America’s great cities. Place and Prosperity is a curated collection of his writings with new and updated selections and framing material.
William Fulton is one of America’s most established thought leaders in the field of urban planning. He currently serves as a Senior Advisor to PFM Management and Budget Consulting and a Fellow at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. From 2014 to 2022, he served as the director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. He is a former Mayor of Ventura, California, and Director of Planning and Economic Development for the city of San Diego. His previous books include Guide to California Planning, the standard urban planning textbook in California, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles, which was a Los Angeles Times best-seller, and The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl (with Peter Calthorpe). Fulton holds master’s degrees in mass communication from The American University and urban planning from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Luis Guajardo is an urban and regional planning professional dedicated to fostering equitable and sustainable communities through planning, design, and policy. His work consists of policy research at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research in housing, transportation, land use, resilience, and urban design. Luis is also the director of the American Planning Association’s Houston section and is excited to discuss Place and Prosperity with one of his mentors – William Fulton – a nationally-renowned thought leader on cities and urbanism.
Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us Connect and Innovate [In-Person Program]
Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us Connect and Innovate [In-Person Program]
Tuesday, 20 September 2022 - 12:30pm
SPUR Urban Center
654 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
United StatesThere are few questions more powerful than “Where are you from?” or “Where do you live?” — people are intimately connected to both their cities and their communities. In Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate, author and urban planner William Fulton explores the idea of place by taking an engaging look at how urban planning decisions are made, how cities are engines of prosperity, and how place and prosperity are intertwined.
Join a conversation with Bill about the importance of place as he dives into his book, which includes a curated collection of his writings from his 40-year career as a journalist, mayor, professor, planning director and director of an urban think tank.
On the Park Bench - Author's Forum: Place and Prosperity
On the Park Bench - Author's Forum: Place and Prosperity
Tuesday, 13 December 2022 - 12:00pm
Join author William Fulton, and CNU co-founder Elizabeth Moule, as they discuss Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us to Connect and Innovate. Fulton's book distills what he has learned as a pre-eminent writer on urbanism, a planner, former mayor, and academic.
This webinar is available for 1 AICP continuing education credit if viewed live as well as 1 CNU-A continuing education credit if viewed live or recorded.
Bill Fulton, Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us Connect and Innovate
Bill Fulton, Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us Connect and Innovate
Tuesday, 15 November 2022 - 6:00pm
Bill Fulton is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on urban planning and land use. He currently serves as a Senior Advisor to PFM Management and Budget Consulting Group, a Fellow at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the LBJ School.
From 2014 to 2022, Bill served as Director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston. Trained in land use planning at UCLA, Bill previously served as Planning Director for the City of San Diego and Mayor and City Councilmember for the City of Ventura, California.
Bill’s first career was as a journalist specializing in writing about cities and urban issues. In his career has also served as President and CEO of Solimar Research Group, a land use think tank; Principal in the California-based urban planning firm now called Placeworks; and Vice President for Policy and Implementation at the advocacy group Smart Growth America, based in Washington, D.C. His expertise includes transfer of development rights, the role of land use regulation in housing production, the structure and organization of local government, and equitable economic development.
He is the author of Guide to California Planning, the standard land use planning textbook in California, which is now in its sixth edition. His eighth book, Place and Prosperity: How Cities Help Us Connect And Innovate, was recently published by Island Press.
The Saint Paul Area Association of Realtors (SPAAR) is hosting Urban Planner, and Author Bill Fulton for a conversation about his book.
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82738604764
Seaside Institute Prize
Seaside Institute Prize
Saturday, 25 February 2023 - 9:00am
Seaside Prize Weekend takes place from February 23-25th. Featuring William Fulton, author of Place and Prosperity, and Nolan Gray, author of Arbitrary Lines.
At the Seaside Prize, visionaries convene in Seaside Florida to honor the best of the best in their field. Attendees enjoy a weekend of Symposium, Continuing Education Courses, and Receptions and more; culminating in the Awards Dinner on Saturday Evening. The Seaside Prize is a weekend of fun, food and design, as we celebrate visionaries and thought leaders who help to shape our lives through the communities they design. The 2022 Seaside Prize celebrates over 40 years of Seaside and the people who sparked a movement.
Case Studies & Excerpts
Read chapter 1 below or download it here.
Blogs
Two Houston Developments Show Approaches to Gentrification
Two Houston Developments Show Approaches to Gentrification
In an op-ed published in collaboration with the Urban Resilience Project, William Fulton (author of Place and Prosperity) highlights two Houston developments, a mile and a half apart, that show two different approaches to addressing rapid gentrification.
Fulton writes:
The anti-gentrification approaches taken in recent years sometimes seem like mere bandages, dulling the problem but not solving it. But that’s why we need to keep trying different approaches, like the Concept Neighborhood idea, that take advantage of market trends – but respect the underlying culture and economics of gentrifying neighborhoods.
Read the full article published in Next City HERE.
Kyler Geoffroy
Kyler Geoffroy is the Online Marketing Manager for Island Press