Sprawl Repair Manual

There is a wealth of research and literature explaining suburban sprawl and the urgent need to retrofit suburbia. However, until now there has been no single guide that directly explains how to repair typical sprawl elements. The Sprawl Repair Manual demonstrates a step-by-step design process for the re-balancing and re-urbanization of suburbia into more sustainable, economical, energy- and resource-efficient patterns, from the region and the community to the block and the individual building. As Galina Tachieva asserts in this exceptionally useful book, sprawl repair will require a proactive and aggressive approach, focused on design, regulation and incentives. The Sprawl Repair Manual is a much-needed, single-volume reference for fixing sprawl, incorporating changes into the regulatory system, and implementing repairs through incentives and permitting strategies. This manual specifies the expertise that's needed and details the techniques and algorithms of sprawl repair within the context of reducing the financial and ecological footprint of urban growth. The Sprawl Repair Manual draws on more than two decades of practical experience in the field of repairing and building communities to analyze the current pattern of sprawl development, disassemble it into its elemental components, and present a process for transforming them into human-scale, sustainable elements. The techniques are illustrated both two- and three-dimensionally, providing users with clear methodologies for the sprawl repair interventions, some of which are radical, but all of which will produce positive results.

"Haphazard, dysfunctional land use has wreaked havoc on our landscape, waterways, and atmosphere. To achieve sustainability, we must seize every opportunity to fix the damage, and this wonderfully illustrated book provides us with the tools, step by step and place by place. Environmentalists as well as planners need to learn from its teachings." --Kaid Benfield "Director of Smart Growth, NRDC, Co-founder, LEED for Neighborhood Development ", "The successful strategies and highly effective illustrations of prototypical solutions in the Sprawl Repair Manual are extremely useful to both citizens and professionals eager to communicate the many advantages of reconfiguring sprawl into more compact, complete, and connected places. Packed with ideas, this book is a great read and will be a must-have reference for years to come!" --Ellen Dunham-Jones "Professor in the School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology ", "[Tachieva] brings a wealth of knowledge, insight and pragmatism to the contents of the manual, and the techniques for repairing sprawl at all levels of the built environment. This is an important book for anybody who is contemplating being involved in the task of repairing sprawl. Its strength is in the compelling urban design ideas and proposals that are communicated via the wealth of illustrations in the book....the author and the firm have to be congratulated for publishing this book at this time that clearly inspires and illuminates the potentials for sprawl repair." -- "Urban Design", "The Sprawl Repair Manual is so far the only complete physical planning manual for handling the impending transformation of suburbia into vital human communities. It is not only hugely instructive but formidably inspirational." --Leon Krier, Master Planner of Prince Charles' Poundbury Project in Dorset, UK

Galina Tachieva is a partner and director of town planning at the central office of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, in Miami, Florida. She is originally from Bulgaria, and received a master's degree in architecture from the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Sofia and a master's in urban design from the University of Miami, Florida. Galina submitted a "Sprawl Repair Kit," which contains some of the ideas and drawings from her book, to the 2009 Re-Burbia competition sponsored by the blog Inhabitat and DWELL magazine, where it won the People's Choice Award.