Atlanta Urbanist Book Group
A Better Atlanta, One Book at a Time
Our mission at the Atlanta Urbanist Book Group is to introduce new ideas to Urban Atlanta by reading recent books about cities, identifying the ideas we think would work in Atlanta, and offering civic leaders a guide to these ideas.
We define “urbanism” broadly. We are reading books about transportation, land use, housing, public safety, government reform, neighborhoods, social infrastructure, education, economic development, regionalism, diversity, politics, arts and culture, volunteerism, and more.
Our aim isn’t to review books but to show how their ideas apply to Atlanta today and suggest ways of moving from good ideas to good actions.
Interested? Like to join us for a discussion? Click here to sign up for our email notices about books and meeting dates.
You can also subscribe to our calendar of events on Google. Click this link to have our meetings connected to your phone’s calendar and updated two or three months in advance. You’ll never have to wonder when the Atlanta Urbanist Book Group meets next.
Next Book: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Sep 3, 2025
We will discuss a classic book about urbanism, the 1961 book that inspired the New Urbanism movement of the 1980s. It was a warning to city leaders in the 1960s that they were destroying their cities under the guise of rescuing them, and a detailed alternative approach that was based on streets, neighborhoods and the city as a whole.
Jane Jacobs was a writer who lived in New York and Toronto. She died in 2006.
We will look for lessons that this classic book holds for Urban Atlanta today.