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Get
Urban - The Complete Guide to City Living by Kyle Ezell
The best and most complete book on Urban Living I have ever heard of! This is a new book
designed to teach Americans about the benefits of city living, and an upcoming
revolution...A coast-to-coast interest in choosing to live, love, and...REGROW America's
cities. Inspires young people and old who are tired of the suburbs and ready for the
glittering lights of city living to "Get Urban!" and move back to the city for
community and cultural action. Helps people "Get Urban" by discovering their
urban lifestyle in the kind of neighbor- hood that fits their tastes, attitudes, and
preferred environment. Order
through Amazon.com!
You can also visit the Get Urban website.
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| If you like Get Urban, or you are considering retirement or a second home, you'll love Kyle Ezell's new book: Retire Downtown: The Lifestyle Destination for Active Retirees and Empty Nesters. Ruppies-Retired Urban People-are cropping up all over the country. The populations of city downtowns are exploding nationwide. Also known as "active retirees," Ruppies are quickly becoming a big part of that population. Downtown living can help them stay active both physically and mentally while keeping them entertained in the process.
Retire Downtown lists the top 20 cities for Ruppies across the nation, with a wealth of facts on each area and a breakdown of each environment.
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Find more books, magazines and other products to help you achieve the urban lifestyle at our bookstore, UrbanStore.
If you are like thousands of Americans you prefer older, well established homes to those that are newly built. Like fine wines, quality homes just get better with age. Their character and distinct features make them interesting to look at and a pleasure to live in. A few remedies now and then, a little cleaning and other touches, and an older home is instantly made to feel welcoming.
Start with things like plumbing. You can find plumbers in San Francisco and other areas with the fabulous search tool at Local.com. Once you have everything working properly you may want to add some of your own personality and style by painting the walls. And don't forget about the floors. If you are not replacing carpets then have them professionally cleaned before you move in. The best resource for finding local carpet cleaners in Boston and other cities is Local.com
The Urban Etiquette Handbook
New rules for getting along in an endlessly wired, ruthlessly crowded, sexually libertarian city. Written about Manhattan in New York Magazine, but its guidelines can apply to any urban metropolis. |
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Rules of the road: (1) No raking women with your eyes; glance quickly and respectfully. (2) Offer to share a taxi rather than fight over it. (3) Babies in strollers get right-of-way—until they abuse it. (4) Still no ogling girls—c’mon! (5) And skateboarding, are you kidding me? (6) Not everybody loves your dog as much as you do. (7) No bicycling on the sidewalk unless under the age of 6. (8) Pedestrians can die of secondhand smoke, too.
Read more at
New York Magazine!
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Site includes resources such as 138 Walkers' Paradises and What Makes A City Walkable.
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WalkScore - Find a walkable neighborhood or rate your neighborhood on its walkability. With gas at $4 a gallon, there's never been a better time to live in a walkable neighborhood. Walk Score ranks 2,508 neighborhoods in the largest 40 U.S. cities to help you find a walkable place to live. |
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Urban Living Is Kinder to the Planet Than the Suburban Lifestyle - To many Americans, ecological nirvana is a bucolic existence surrounded by wilderness. But the Thoreauvian desire for more elbow room has led to sprawl, malls, and cougar attacks. The edge-city upshot is a national cadre of 3.5 million "extreme commuters," who spend more than three hours a day in transit, many of them spewing carbon dioxide between exurb home and city office. Automobile exhaust in the US contributes roughly 1.9 billion tons a year to the global carbon cloud, more than the emissions of India, Japan, or Russia. Even worse are the 40 million lawn mowers used to tame the suburban backcountry: Each spews 11 cars' worth of pollutants per hour. The fact is, urban living is kinder to the planet.
Fear And Loathing Of The 'Burb - There are plenty of good reasons to reject suburban living, many with a basis in conservation. Suburb-dwellers use more land than their urban counterparts, and suck up more energy as they drive around and heat their houses. But conspicuous resource consumption isn't the real reason I loathe the 'burbs. Urban living is a much less logical and more visceral preference. I don't expect to convince committed suburbanites that my way will save the planet. I favor densification as an urban planning strategy, but accept that many car-and-cul-de-sac-loving Americans probably never will. I don't understand the suburb as a lifestyle choice; but equally, I wouldn't choose to live as a nomadic goat-herder or an Indonesian boat-dweller, and we can all still coexist on this planet. I just happen to think that suburbs--even the ones considered pretty--are ugly, lonely, soulless places, and I hope never to live in one again.
USA Today: Gentrification - A Boost for Everyone - Everyone knows gentrification uproots the urban poor with
higher rents, higher taxes and $4 lattes. It's the lament of community organizers, the
theme of the 2004 film Barbershop 2 and the guilty assumption of the yuppies moving
in. But everyone may be wrong, according to Lance Freeman, an assistant professor of urban
planning at Columbia University.
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What It's Like to Live in an Urban Home - Hip home seekers who long for convenience, cuisine and culture are drawn to neighborhoods in a city's downtown area. But with climbing populations and prices, is urban living right for you?
Sky's the new limit for urban living in Texas, and beyond - This is the largest state in the contiguous USA, stretching more than 700 miles from east to west and north to south, and space often seems infinite. Here, living large — and spread out — hasn't been just a choice but almost a birthright. What changed? Gas prices soared. Traffic congestion choked highways. Air quality worsened and so did pressure from environmental regulators. Light-rail lines came online. And demographics shifted: As baby boomers became empty nesters, their desire for convenience and fun suddenly merged with those of young professionals. Both groups are flocking to urban settings.
Four in Five Big Cities Put High Value on Sustainability Goals - The report, "Green Cities: How Urban Sustainability Efforts Can and Must Drive America's Climate Change Policies," evaluates how well cities across the country are working on reducing urban emissions, and lays out the three key areas that will make the most impact in the least amount of time.
Fort Worth Grows Up, Texas Magazine - An article from the October 2008 issue. This big city has gotten bigger—and better. See why it has every reason to stand tall.
An Urban Dweller Writes a Guide on Living the Metro Life - San Diego
Tribune - If Kyle Ezell's vision comes true, Americans are on the verge of a mass
movement back to the cities, and San Diegans are already leading the way.
Lofty
Living Migrates West - If you get a lift
from the treehouse- or playhouse-like appeal of soaring ceilings and 18-foot windows,
you'll love loft living. If expansive, towering spaces trigger feelings of vertigo or
agoraphobia, leave the loft lifestyle to stauncher stomachs. Love them or leave them,
lofts are the new darling of the housing market out West as a fast-growing alternative
niche in new housing trends, especially in redeveloping urban areas.
Urban Lofts Rise to New Heights - Merriam-Webster defines “lofty” as “elevated in character and
spirit”; “noble”; “elevated in status”; “superior” and
“rising to a great height. Today’s urban loft dwellers would agree with all
those definitions as they embrace new-age metropolitan living in all its glory.
Smart Homes Enter the Mainstream - Article by freelance writer Shelley Seale.
Miami Hopes to Revive Urban Living - Today, maybe 400 people live in downtown Miami's central business district, which bustles by day with the suit-and-tie crowd strolling to offices and shoppers browsing jewelry shops and electronic and discount stores. By night, the workers and shoppers leave, turning the downtown core into a dead zone dotted with vacant parking lots. But fast forward to Miami's near future, and more than 12,000 people will call the area home.
New Kids on the Block - Seven San Francisco buildings that go beyond
SF's live/work boom.
Downtown Homes Come With Value And Verve- That's a wrap for
cocooning. Hanging out is in. Hot on the heels of a head-for-the-hills trend among home
buyers seeking the security of remote locales, a back-to-the-city movement is growing
among young professionals and empty nesters looking for a different kind of action.
Lofts, the New Trend, Catch on in Arizona's Valley - High-end lofts are catching on in the Valley, an area known for its affordable fringe subdivisions.The urban living trend readily found in other large U.S. metropolitan areas is finally gaining popularity in downtown Phoenix and Scottsdale. Hip, industrial-looking lofts are becoming a hot investment for baby boomers and young urbanites.
Living better instead of bigger - A San Francisco family rethinks a remodel after a stay in a grass hut and aboard a boat.
Choosing the Right Builder - San Antonio Exress-News article by freelance writer Shelley Seale.
Downtown
Houston Is Hot, Hot, Hot - Downtown
Houston is alive, not just with the sound of music, but also restaurants, sports venues
and, best of all, people.
Are
You Moving Into A Healthy Neighborhood? - The problems associated with urban sprawl are getting a lot
of attention these days as cities deal with increased pollution, traffic gridlock and an
aging infrastructure. How urban and suburban areas deal with increased population growth
was a major issue in the last federal election, and it's not a problem that will go away
soon.
Mansions
in the sky-Dallas Business Journal 2/1998 - High-rise living offers residents all the amenities with none of the hassles of conventional housing. High-rise condominiums and apartments in Dallas are enjoying a 97% occupancy rate in today's market, said Judy Pittman. "There's something about this lifestyle that makes you feel good," she said. "I don't know if it's the activity of the sky, the sunrises and sunsets, seeing all the action, or the cozy days when it's storming, but there's something uplifting about it."
Highland
Park: The Beverly Hills of Dallas - When you tour Beverly Drive, the look of Highland
Park is reminiscent of the more well-known Beverly Hills, with its majestic, sprawling
residences, many hinting at Spanish heritage through tile roofs, stucco walls, stained
glass windows and romantic open balconies....
For websites relating to the urban lifestyle around the country, books and magazines about the urban lifestyle, as well as links to online urban decor and furniture stores, please check out our Lifestyle Section!
Find even more books, magazines and other products to help you achieve the urban lifestyle at our bookstore, UrbanStore.
You might also find useful our Mortgage Section and our Moving Section.
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