Sensitive to the global forces precipitating urban change, Wolfe and Haas use the tools of observation, photography, and interviews to examine urban sustainability, particularly the unique character, history, and essential nature of urban places. The authors are broadly experienced in their subject.... [S]ubstantive, illuminating, and richly illustrated...this volume is a primer on how to redesign urban space while remaining sensitive to its modern, global niche and vigilant in preserving its culture, history, and authenticity. Almost methodically, using rich photographic evidence, the authors prescriptively detail the importance of urban context and historical character, chapter by chapter. The book might be effective in certain upper-level urban studies or urban design programs. Recommended.

Choice Reviews

[The] book proposes an interdisciplinary approach called LEARN (Look, Engage, Assess, Review, and Negotiate) to discerning an area, or a city’s, distinct identity. In essence, this book could not be more timely, partly also because during the many zooms and online conferences of the past year and a half, many of us were called upon to propose visions for how we could make better cities after Covid-19. Some of us have argued for the importance of grasping the context as a tactic for bringing local communities to the table of place making, but each of us did it from the perspective of our discipline, or practice, and what we lacked was a thoughtful, cohesive, overarching, and balanced method for understand the everlasting urban culture and character of places in order to cope better with environmental and social uncertainty. Now, thanks to Wolfe, we have it in LEARN.

Built Environment

Wolfe's vision into the means by which cities sustain cultural attributes is grounded in plural methods --from ethnographies to artistic production or mapping--multi-scholar and multi-sited examination of explicit or implicit place-making strategies, and the recognition of the hybridity of place, all of which have long been familiar engagements in humanistic geography.

Europe Now

Charles Wolfe and Tigran Haas are passionate about the culture and character of cities, and their book Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character is a relevant contribution to the knowledge how to maintain the identity of our urban places. The principles of public space identified in the book are free of nostalgia and go beyond mere concepts of heritage conservation. The book gives guidance how to avoid the trap of urban renewal that is out-of-scale, context, and character the kind of development that has destroyed so much of the distinctive place attributes and ignored or diminished the differences of our urban places

Steffen Lehmann, Professor of Architecture, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (USA) and University of Portsmouth (UK), Author of The Principles of Green Urbanism. Transforming the City for Sustainability

Nothing is more important in planning and urban design than understanding what makes successful places work. Charles R Wolfe is a master of the art of observation and interpretation, and his new book generously shares his insights.

Rob Cowan, author of The Dictionary of Urbanism

Charles Wolfe and Tigran Haas’s wonderful book Sustaining a City's Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices invites us to see place intimately, expansively, physically, culturally, and through time, and in so doing to better understand our communities and their place in the unfolding of civilization.

Jonathan F. P. Rose, author, The Well Tempered City: What Modern Science, Ancient Civilizations and Human Behavior Teach Us About the Future of Urban Life