Martin Zimmerman

Martin Zimmerman writes from Charlotte, North Carolina, and is a frequent contributor to Urban Land on a range of smart growth, urban place-making and multi-modal transportation topics. His work has also appeared in numerous publications including the Washington Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, APA Planning, Urban Ecology, Landscape Architecture and Preservation magazines. He currently directs the City Wise Studio USA. He can be reached at [email protected].

2-cover-image
Design and Planning
In Print: The City That Never Was
Mark Twain once observed that “there are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it and when he can.” Author Christopher Marcinkoski, on the other hand—a faculty member in landscape architecture and urban design at the University of Pennsylvania—takes the opposite tack in this, his first book: “speculative expansion of settlement will continue in perpetuity, and any suggestion otherwise should be met with the utmost suspicion.”
February 1, 2017
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
http://urbanland.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/02/2-Book-Cover-210x300.jpg
Resilience and Sustainability
//
Design and Planning
In Print: Handbook of Biophilic City Planning and Design
The term biophilia was coined by psychiatrist Eric Fromm during the 1960s and later championed by esteemed biologist E.O. Wilson (1984) in his evocative book by the same name. Author Tim Beatley is a relatively recent convert to the biophilia hypothesis, having previously garnered well-deserved repute for promoting the cause of sustainable cities as an antidote to the specter of climate change.
January 30, 2017
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
http://urbanland.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/08/door-to-door-e1470947888881.png
Infrastructure
//
News
In Print: Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation
Journalist Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of 14 books. In Door to Doorhe takes on another complex, resource-intensive topic: the mammoth transportation systems that make it possible (and often frighteningly impossible) for Americans to drive 344 million miles in an hour and move $55 billion worth of goods per day.
September 12, 2016
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
dreamcities
Design and Planning
//
Public Spaces
In Print: Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World
This is a book that educates, entertains, and astonishes. It is an effort that progresses along multiple paths of utopian impulse, while at the same time gushing forth with a bravado of egocentric, architectural hubris.
August 15, 2016
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
zimmermanconservationcover
Infrastructure
In Print: Conservation for Cities: How to Plan and Build Natural Infrastructure
Robert McDonald writes from Washington, D.C., where he is a senior scientist for sustainable land use at the Nature Conservancy. In this modest and succinct primer, he explains with an engaging informality ways to deal with many of the standard environmental shortcomings affecting U.S. cities, whether caused by the forces of nature or by human misuse.
March 14, 2016
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
http://urbanland.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/02/1-NewmanKenworthy-r05_01-210x300.jpg
Infrastructure
//
News
In Print: The End of Automobile Dependence: How Cities Are Moving Beyond Car-Based Planning
Amid the ongoing debates over climate change, considerations of “peak auto” have eclipsed those of “peak oil” in recent years. In this cautiously optimistic book, the former notion is updated and aligned within a set of long-term strategies necessary to achieve a low-carbon green economy.
March 3, 2016
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
800_ribboncutting
Economy, Market & Trends
//
Public Spaces
Bike Sharing Pedals Toward a Fourth Global Generation
Last year marked a 12 percent year-over-year increase in the total number of bicycles in sharing schemes around the world. China announced 60 new launches last year alone, also claiming the two largest fleets—78,000 bikes in Hangzhou and 40,000 in Beijing. Database expert Russell Meddin’s January 2016 tally counted 1.27 million total two-wheelers in almost 1,000 cities worldwide, roughly double the numbers recorded just five years ago.
February 19, 2016
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
http://urbanland.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/11/zoned-in-the-usa-197x300.jpg
Design and Planning
In Print: Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation
In this probing analysis, based largely on contrasts between the United States and Europe, planning scholar Sonia Hirt offers new and refreshing insights into zoning’s fault lines and asks why, despite recurring attempts at reform, it has yet to overcome the challenges outlined a century or more ago.
November 25, 2015
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
http://urbanland.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/07/Book-203x300.jpg
Infrastructure
In Print: Rail and the City: Shrinking Our Carbon Footprint While Reimagining Public Space
Author Roxanne Warren is an architect, an urban designer, and a staunch transit advocate, writing from her office in New York City, by most measures the most complex transit metropolis in the United States.
August 5, 2015
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
http://urbanland.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2015/06/inprt2_300-233x300.jpg
Economy, Market & Trends
In Print: Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Actions for Long-term Change
This is a much-anticipated book, and the basic message is an important one: small-scale actions play an essential role in ensuring that cities—and especially the street frontage or building blocks within them—are responsive to genuine but unmet needs
July 24, 2015
 • 
Martin Zimmerman
Load More
Members Sign In
Don’t have an account yet? Sign up for a ULI guest account.
Forgot Password?