Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods

Book Description

Superbia! is a book of practical ideas for creating more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable neighborhoods. It is about remaking suburban and urban neighborhoods to serve people better and to reduce human impact on the environment.

The authors first trace the history of the suburbs, showing how they fail to meet many peoples' needs. They then describe how existing neighborhoods can be transformed, offering cohousing and new urbanist communities as examples. The reader is then guided through the transformation of a fictitious neighborhood that adopts the authors' thirty-one steps. Ideas for the blossoming of the suburb are described in order of difficulty, from easy to boldest, including:

the creation of a neighborhood newsletter to foster a sense of neighborhood identity and cooperation
regular community dinners, discussion groups, and baby-sitting co-ops
the removal of backyard fences to create park-like spaces for community play areas, or gardens
retrofitting homes for energy efficiency, and installing community energy systems.

Examples from all over North America and beyond provide real-life proof that citizen planners can create Superbia! And the most comprehensive resource listing imaginable puts all the tools needed at your fingertips.

Well-illustrated and reader-friendly, Superbia! is written primarily for the millions who live in urban areas or existing suburbs. It will also be of major interest to environmentalists, planners, and all who want to create a more humane and nurturing lifestyle.

Dan Chiras is the author of nineteen books including The Natural Plaster Book (New Society Publishers, 2003) and over 200 articles, a contributing editor to Mother Earth News, and an adjunct professor at Colorado College.

Dave Wann has produced six video programs on community, is coauthor of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic and two other books about design. Both live in Colorado.

Customer Reviews:

Very practical.......2007-05-30

Although I haven't purchased this book, I have read a copy that I borrowed from a library.

This is a very practical book. It is nice to know that there is a way in which suburbanites can become less car-dependent, and that you don't have to live in a city's downtown core to become less car-dependent! I also like the idea of suburbs becoming more like traditional towns surrounding each big city. If suburbs were like traditional towns, they would be much more pleasant and more interesting places to live in.

Beautiful Ideas for Reinventing Neighborhoods.......2006-07-25

"Researchers have demonstrated that a feeling of community reduces suburban depression."

The first pictures I observed upon opening this book were of a lovely neighborhood in much need of comfort and the beautiful results after the streets had been lined with trees. Sidewalks had also been created and pathways up to each front porch created a very inviting environment. The trees shaded the walkways and people enjoyed riding their bikes down the streets. The contrast was eye opening and the results very comforting. You can imagine the people living in this area finally feeling like they were home.

The contents include:

The Changing Face of Suburbia
Reinventing Our Neighborhoods for Health, Profit, and Community
Imagining a Sustainable Neighborhood
How to Remodel a Neighborhood
Germination: First Steps
Leafing Out: Bolder Ideas
Your Neighborhood Blossoms: Boldest Steps
Suburban Revitalization I: Can This Dream Become a Reality?
Suburban Revitalization II: Making Bold Dreams Come True
Taking Care in the Neighborhood

This book helps to emphasize the isolation of the typical suburban house and shows how the community design seems to emphasize private space instead of community. This promotes a lack of connection. Could the way we live promote depression and a lack of friendships? Could the way we build communities lessen domestic violence, encourage community interaction and promote a general feeling of well-being?

Like Feng Shui, this book gives ideas for building or restoring neighborhoods to promote happiness and to reduce stress. While some say we are not a product of our environment, it only takes a little research to find out that where there is more hope and a greater sense of community, humans seem to thrive.

"...research reveals that in a closely knit community, levels of serotonin (a natural anti-depressant) are higher, so the neighborhood is collectively more optimistic and energetic." ~pg. 26

The transformations in communities is revealed in pictures that explore the role of nature in our comfort level. Would you rather live behind high brick walls or enjoy a more peaceful and serene landscape of short fences and flowered walkways? In one section, an alleyway between living spaces is transformed into a little piece of heaven.

Some of the features include:

Ten Basic Design Principles for Remodeling Neighborhoods
How to Sponsor Community Dinners
Neighborhood Clubs
Organic Gardens
Replacing asphalt with porous pavers - to reduce heat absorption

As a child, I remember two types of homes. One with a backyard, tightly fenced in, and another with wide-open spaces and easy access to walking through community spaces. I can tell you, I preferred the latter.

This book is filled with wisdom and great advice for city planners and I've seen the idea of producing an edible landscape work efficiently in some areas. As a child we used to pick fruit off trees on the walk home from school. It is a dream that can come true and this book has many ideas that once implemented will improve the lives of everyone in the community. By reading this book, you may also decide to move to a location that values these ideas.

~The Rebecca Review
Currently living in an area without fences and lovely tree-lined walkways

Quality of Life Self-Help Book for Neighborhoods.......2004-05-11

Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods is a "self-help" book for urban and suburban neighborhoods. The suburbs are often car-dependent, land-hungry, strictly residential neighborhoods that are often isolated from schools, workplaces and civic centers. They often lack convenient links to parks and mass transportation and are typically not developed in ways conducive to meeting people.

But, these challenges provide numerous opportunities for positive change! People can reinvent their neighborhoods based on economic, environmental, and social values. Superbia! provides a checklist of Easy, Bolder, and Boldest Steps that can lead to safer, friendlier, livelier, healthier, more productive, diverse and vibrant neighborhoods. Neighbors can chose the steps they think will create a stronger sense of place and connection to people, nature, and culture.

Easy Steps include sponsoring community dinners, establishing a community newsletter, and creating car and van pools for work commutes. Some neighbors have started book and investment clubs. For example, the Hillcrest Neighborhood Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sponsors a book club where neighbors "get together with fellow book enthusiasts to converse, discuss, and debate current bestsellers and classics," according to the group's website. Superbia! describes how there are hundreds of potential links between people within neighborhoods - links that can reduce time, human energy, and money spent by individuals on tight schedules as well as tight budgets. Easy Steps help people know one another better helping them discover links that lead to Bolder Steps.

Planting a community garden or orchard is a Bolder Step. A composting project can serve the community garden and individual yards. Planting shade trees and windbreaks reduces energy costs, provides wildlife habitat, and increases property values. The Highlands Neighborhood in Littleton, Colorado, took a Bolder Step by tearing down fences. There was already a neighborhood tradition of parties in backyards, but neighbors decided to go a step further and took down their six-foot fences and opened the space to the neighbors creating a better sense of community.

Boldest Steps include creating a community energy system and creating a common house and community-shared office. A Boldest Step was taken by New York's Darrow School when the failure of a conventional wastewater system provided an opportunity to install a Living Machine - a greenhouse-contained biological waste treatment facility that uses natural methods rather than harmful chemicals to recycle human waste. This system is also used as a hands-on laboratory for a variety of classes including science, chemistry, mathematics, and even art.

With a history of how the suburbs came to be, 31 ways to make the suburbs better, examples of people who have created more sustainable neighborhoods, and a Resource Guide, readers can actively transform their suburbia into Superbia!

Authors Chiras and Wann walk their talk. Chiras built and lives in a sustainable, solar home, and Dave Wann helped develop and lives in Harmony Village co-housing. They are also co-directors of the Sustainable Futures Society's Sustainable Suburbs project. Visit www.sustainablecolorado.org to learn more.

Susan Bilo is an energy and resource conservation consultant with Sustainable By Design, LLC.

Hopeful prescription for Improving Uninspired Neighborhoods.......2004-03-06

To inject life, fun and spontanaeity into North American suburbs will not be easy. Many neighbourhoods were built after WW II, when land and resources such as electricity and gasoline were plentiful and cheap; developers, government and the public were not very conscious of there being limits to, or issues with, creating vast car-centric suburbs. Now, many of us live in an energy-inefficient home on a long, straight street that forms one line in a grid that is populated by far more motor vehicles than pedestrians. Here, we easily grow fat and sedentary, often not knowing who lives one or two doors away.
In Superbia!, the authors prescribe 31 steps to transform neighborhoods into places where there is a true sense of community, and where hard resources (e.g. cars, washing machines) can ultimately be shared by groups of families, and consumable resources (electricity, gasoline) are used in more environmentally responsible ways.
The encouraging news is that neighborhoods in the USA, Europe and elsewhere have implemented these 31 steps. It often took a lot of persuasion of local politicians and bureaucrats to, for example, tear up existing streets to make them narrower, for the purpose of calming traffic. While the authors, to their credit, indicate that some of the 31 steps are plainly challenging to implement, and ential people changing their mental models, the authors at times neglect to address the role and response of some key stakeholders as neighborhoods transform themselves. For example, as I read the steps about removing fences between people's yards, and subsequent encouragement of kids in the neighborhood to congregate in certain areas of this newly-created 'open' space, I visualized the trepidation that the insurance companies covering these homes might have; what happens when you encourage everyone onto your property, and then someone gets hurt? In general terms, I felt that the book could at times have been more rigorous in tipping off the reader as to what to expect from other stakeholders relevant to the transformation process.
I support what the authors propose. The main message I got from the book is: don't wait for politicians or developers to be the ones to build or retrofit neighborhoods that are environmentally sustainable, and offer building structures and juxtapositions to foster social cohesiveness; rather, strike out on your own, with the modest first step being to organize a potluck supper for your immediate neighbors. From there, transformation events can evolve; the authors have demonstrated, through numerous anecdotes, that this process can indeed work.

From Suburbia to Superbia!.......2004-02-06

Superbia! is a strikingly simple book, proposing that neighbors can create
friendlier and healthier neighborhoods by getting to know each other and
working together. The beginning Steps it suggests are easy - things like
having neighborhood potlucks and baby-sitting coops - but the advanced steps
will take some real teamwork. You and your neighbors won't set up a
neighborhood energy system or buy a house for use as a common building until
a high level of trust is established. By the time the advanced steps are
taken on, the neighborhood will be like an extended family, with all its
benefits -- as well as liabilities.

But Chiras and Wann argue that the benefits far outweigh the liabilities.
For example, they don't propose a loss of privacy, but rather an increase in
options and flexibility. What do we do when the car won't start, we go on
vacation and the plants need watering, or we just need someone to talk to?
Call a neighbor.

This book is well-researched, documenting how neighborhoods took the shape
they did, with wide streets, huge lawns, and barricade-like garage doors.
The 50 million suburban homes in the U.S. (and all their associated
infrastructure) are then seen in the book as ingredients for cooking up a
better neighborhood. As the authors suggest, why can't we create common
areas for the kids and a community garden by donating parcels of our
backyards and creating a pathway where alleys used to be? Why can't we
establish a neighborhood recycling system, a carpooling and even car-sharing
system? Why shouldn't part of our yards also become low-maintenance, "edible
landscapes" that provide cherries and grapes rather than just grass
clippings?

As the book compellingly asks, Why can't we work together to save time,
money, and human energy, and in the process, have some fun? In the median
income U.S. household budget, $3,000 a year could be saved if our costs for
food, energy, entertainment, health, and transportation were reduced through
neighborhood efforts that also meet an often- expressed need for a sense of
community, and a sense of place.

What Superbia! is about is basic improvements in the quality of our
lifestyles. Less of an emphasis on buying our lives, and more on just living
our lives. Far from being just a Utopia-like dream, the book's ideas are
already being implemented in neighborhoods across the country, and several
chapters in the book are dedicated to case studies of each Step - where and
how it was implemented. Another series of chapters presents a fictitious
neighborhood that walks the reader through the evolution of the Fox Run
neighborhood, from suburbia to Superbia!

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Canadian Journal of Urban Research, published by Institute of Urban Studies on December 22, 2004. The length of the article is 2228 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Chiras, Dan and Dave Wann: Superbia! 31 ways to create sustainable neighborhoods.(The Key to Sustainable Cities)(Book Review)
Author: William T. Perks
Publication: Canadian Journal of Urban Research (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2004
Publisher: Institute of Urban Studies
Volume: 13 Issue: 2 Page: 382(6)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of the American Planning Association

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Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of the American Planning Association
Dom Nozzi
Manufacturer: American Planning Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of the American Planning Association, published by American Planning Association on January 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1565 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Superbia! 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods.(Book Review)
Author: Dom Nozzi
Publication: Journal of the American Planning Association (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2005
Publisher: American Planning Association
Volume: 71 Issue: 1 Page: 109(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

The Digital Biomedical Illustration Handbook is the only book currently available that provides in-depth coverage of the medical illustration field. It includes a brief history of the field, a state-of-the-industry, an overview of the training required to be a medical illustrator, and the techniques and tools used to create high-quality digital illustrations with Photoshop® CS and 3ds max 6. This beautifully illustrated book is written for artists, graphic designers, art directors, art students, and those interested in learning about medical illustration. The goal of the medical illustrator has always been to educate, conceptualize, and clearly communicate biomedical knowledge visually to the scientific community and the public at large. However, the tools used to achieve this goal have changed significantly in the past few years, and this book teaches artists how to adapt their skills to the digital realm. Artists will learn how to use digital tools to create a variety of professional quality illustrations- surgical, editorial, veterinary, patient education, real-time 3D for the Web, and molecular and cellular animation. If you are interested in learning about medical illustration and the skills it requires, or if you are a practicing illustrator looking for new insights, this is the one resource you'll need.

Customer Reviews:

Great book.......2007-08-17

This is a fantastic book with great info and tutorials. However, be aware that the CD with all the files for the tutorials, plus the demo software, is for Windows only. Unless, I've completely missed it, I don't see this indicated in any of the product information here on Amazon.
I would still highly recommend this, but it's not as useful if you have a Mac.

A hands on book in medical illustration.......2007-03-23

Mr.de la Flor has written a unique tutorial oriented book on doing medical illustration using Photoshop CS, and 3dMax. (and Anark Studio for the web.) Although the book is for slightly earlier versions of these programs everything covered can by done by PS CS2 and 3dMax 9.
These are two powerhouse programs that are used by professional illustrators. Although there is plenty of literature on the use of these programs, there is very little hands on, detailed literature dealing with medical illustration. This book covers that gap in a very thorough way. I personally believe that the tutorial step by step approach is an excellent way to learn. This book takes the reader through 2d and 3d illustration.
Being a true artist the introductory chapters provide an interesting historical perspective on medical illustration. Being a practical working illustrator Mr. de la Flor provides advice and info on making a living doing medical illustration.
Finally, Mr. de la Flor is a nice man. He very generously corrected some deficiencies in the copy of my book that I received from Amazon.
(I am a forensic pathologist doing illustration primarily for court.)

Great Value, Great Book.......2007-02-08

This book is great! It's a how-to-draw-medical-illustrations-electronically book. I've always wondered just how to get started, and this book explains it all from sketches to saving the final file. And the author does it in a clear step-by-step easy reading style with lots of color pictures and screen shots. Each chapter takes you through color schemes and brush stroke settings. It even provides a CD with some trial programs so you can follow along with the also included tutorials. If you already have artistic drawing skills (not like Da Vinci, but know the basics), have some Photoshop navigational ability, have anatomy knowledge (or can look it up on the web), and have an electronic drawing tablet, then you've got to have this book. It doesn't just show you a bunch of pretty final gallery masterpieces of medical illustrations, it shows you how to go about them--how to achieve the effects that make a biomedical illustration attractive and, most importantly, educational. The author gives you his secrets. The chapters cover not one style, but several. I can honestly say, if you're only going to buy one book on this subject, then get this one. I'm very glad I did, and I am amazing myself at what I can do because I followed the steps in the book.

The Digital Biomedical Illustration Handbook. : An article from: Technical Communication

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The Digital Biomedical Illustration Handbook. : An article from: Technical Communication
Donna Ford
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Technical Communication, published by Thomson Gale on August 1, 2005. The length of the article is 639 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Digital Biomedical Illustration Handbook.
Author: Donna Ford
Publication: Technical Communication (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 52 Issue: 3 Page: 377(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

"Whatever porno is, whatever porno does, you may regret it, but you cannot reject it. To paraphrase Falstaff: banish porno, and you banish all of the world." —Martin Amis

A land where sex is simulated, evoked, glorified, supercharged in the extreme, a land where everything is about the body, in its possible and perverse sexual combinations....This is Pornoland, a strange, parallel universe where pornographic films are churned out on a daily basis. Photographs by Stefano de Luigi and a text by Martin Amis are the guides through this world, filled with actors capable of extraordinary performances (although not the kind that would ever win Oscars), directors who can make an entire film in just one day, improvised sets, almost nonexistent plots, and locations that stay exactly the same from one day to the next.

The journey encompasses Milan, Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo, Dortmund, and Los Angeles. It includes no trite moralizing, hasty judgments, or yearnings for redemption. Stefano de Luigi's images and Martin Amis's words use respect, humor, and irony to tell the story of a rarely glimpsed world full of crude colors and harsh brutality, bodily contortions and bursts of laughter, unexpected tenderness and situations on the very edge of the absurd. 54 color illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Pornoland.......2005-09-09

The photos are beautiful and aproach the subject - pornography industry - with a sensible touch, as well as display this universe on a rather unusual way. The images are at the same time poetical and documental ( which means that we can figure out real people behind porn icons). The presentation text, by Martin Amis, whom I think, do not need a formal presentation since he is one of the best known contemporary british writers, also focuses the people and their motivations beyond the characters they play in the media / product they sell.Photographer de Luigi has a very accurate aesthetic sense as much as is good enough to catch his subject avoiding deja vu, posing and vulgarity.

An Adventure Book!.......2004-10-31

PORNOLAND is not what you would imagine from the title: this is not a down-and-dirty expose of the seamy exploitation of pornography. This book is a running commentary on the world of making Porn movies, an industry that has flourished since the first movie camera was made (and indeed, in etchings and drawings that date back centuries in time!). Photographer Stefano de Luigi has traveled to Los Angeles, Milan, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo, and Dortmund and captured the process involved of making low budget, negligibly scripted, one-movie-per-day pornography flicks: his photographs are more about color and atmosphere on set than they are about the actors at work. The impact of this voyeuristic journey is made more solid by the accompanying writings of Martin Amis (whose novels such as the current 'Yellow Dog' continue to be best sellers).

There are no moments of revelation and certainly no judgments made. Instead this is one of those photography books that is satisfied to inform without editorial comment. And the adventures described are worth the ride! Grady Harp, October 2004

Book Description

The three most inevitable things in the world are death, taxes, and another Groo collection from Dark Horse Maverick. This one is about the other two: Groo and his loyal pooch Rufferto encounter a king who is forever raising the cost of living and an undertaker who drives up the cost of dying. So the kingdom goes to war against ... well, they're not exactly sure of that part yet. But they're definitely going to war. What a time for Groo to be trapped in his solemn vow not to kill! And if you think that makes him any less dangerous, you don't know Groo. He's even worse ... as the savage warrior, Odoman the Invincible, finds out the hard way. The Eisner Award winning team of Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier do it again ... and if you're thinking that "it" involves anything other than bringing you some of the best adventures of the world's stupidest barbarian, you'd probably be wrong!

Customer Reviews:

A very funny graphic novel.......2003-08-26

Groo is a barbarian's barbarian: muscular, an expert swordsman, and incredibly *less* intelligent that his faithful canine companion, Rufferto. When certain people realize what a moneymaker Groo can be for them (Morose the Undertaker, the King who raises taxes to increase the army, merchants who supply the army with supplies, etc.), they begin to love him. However, when Groo realizes that killing people has made him unpopular with most people, he vows to never kill again. Disaster! Morose and the King need a new target for the war machine, and strangely, Groo turns out to be just as deadly when honoring vow!

This is a very funny graphic novel. The artwork, which reminded me a lot of the old Mad Magazine issues, caught my eye, and the story kept me reading. If you want a funny, light-hearted (and light-headed) read, then this book is for you!

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Sergio Aragones' Groo: Death & Taxes #3 (Groo)

Manufacturer: Dark Horse Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Comic
ASIN: B000IG9SMC

Product Description

Comic book published by Dark Horse Comics. Written & illustrated by Sergio Aragones (of Mad Magazine fame) and starring the invincible Groo The Barbarian.

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