Game changing Patented membrane heat press. Perfect for white toner transfers, transfer across collars, buttons and zippers.

Group Adds Special Closet Sale and Wish List Days to Make Buying and Selling RG Items Easier

Rayward Apparel debuts new collection of sun protective clothing, compromising neither comfort nor performance in the process.

Funstigators, an independent clothing company based in Los Angeles run by Cookie and Jesse Steele, has refocused it's manufacturing operations to produce masks that will help slow the spread of COVID-19 through the community.

Louise Misha's New Line for Spring Summer 2220 Entire Line is 100% GOTS Certified

Make her a hand made DIY mask, stitched with love!

www.chrisflach.com

Madelyn Blair is the author of several popular management-focused books, including "Riding the Current" and "Essays in Two Voices." She is a renowned speaker and resiliency expert.

Check with The Online Publishers "TOP platform" first when you need digital marketing solutions and services because it will help you to save both time and money, while also providing you the best options.

The Shelby Star awarded First Place for Best Law Firm to Teddy, Meekins & Talbert, and Best Lawyers in America - U.S. News & World Report bestowed 'Best Law Firms' honors, including specific distinction for DUI/DWI defense defense in Charlotte.

The 2019 Tri-State Grain Growers Convention is soon to kick off in Spokane, Wash., Nov. 13-16 at the Davenport Grand Hotel.

Penn never gave up and to add to her achievements, her success story made it to the cover of the Pan African Entrepreneurial and Luxury magazine, Pleasures Magazine.

The publication challenges you to start rethinking your strategies during today's economic phase, and highlights the importance of staying true to your vision in both good and bad economic times.

The most popular automotive trends, car makes or technologies of 2019 in a nutshell

After helping entrepreneurs find success in business, Ashely is ready to share her knowledge with a larger audience.

In this whitepaper, authors explore the idea that the equipment fleet is a strategic asset and should be managed as one.

Discussion Will Spotlight Why Women Should Take the Lead in Politics Awards Presentation Will Honor Local Notables

In this publication (co-sponsored by Zurich), you'll find FMI's top-ten articles of the past decade. Most of these topics are still relevant in today's E&C business environment and cover a broad range of industry issues.

In this report, authors present results that they gathered from more than 150 E&C executives who shared their experiences and strategies from the last downturn, how they focused their energy, and what key lessons they learned.

The following is a brief roundup of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. A new antibody test is highly accurate at determining whether people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a study published on Friday in The Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found the test, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, suggesting little chance of incorrectly diagnosing a healthy person as having been infected and virtually no chance of a false negative readout.

Director of Fiscal Policy at the American Action Forum Gordon Gray joins Yahoo Finance’s Seana Smith to break down the April jobs report and how some workers are making more on unemployment compared to their wages before the coronavirus pandemic.

Researchers have found another vulnerability in software made by Schneider Electric that is similar to the one exploited by the notorious Stuxnet malware.

read more

Thinking of Your OT Network as an Extension of Your IT Network Will Give You a Consolidated Picture of Your Technology Infrastructure

read more

Underpins company plan to expand commercialization and definitive manufacturing relationships

Extreme endurance motorcycle rider to attempt 9th world record, "Greatest Distance on a Motorcycle in 24 Hours (Individual)" this weekend in Uvalde, Texas. Follow live at www.carlreese.net starting on February 24, 2017.

Motorcycle enthusiasts can now experience another bucket-list journey of a lifetime.

Motorcycle enthusiasts are encouraged to take advantage of the European riding season and attend the world's largest BMW motorcycle party.

Austin personal injury attorney Chip Evans said the state ranks among the worst in the nation for motorcycle safety. Texas is behind only South Carolina and Mississippi in the number of number of motorcycle fatalities per registered motorcycles.

WeeTect, a global leader in designing and manufacturing abrasion resistant helmet visors, today announced that it has started using this technology on other eye and face protection products.

The global automotive aftermarket is rapidly evolving, with demand for starter solenoids being higher than before. T&X Starter Solenoid Manufacturers moved in supply the growing market, and their products have gained popularity the world over.

WeeTect announces its new generation of photochromic visor inserts.

Sanford, Florida Power Sports Dealership Continues Partnership with Kyle Farnell

Burt Brothers announces an exciting weekend as they welcome Mario Andretti to celebrate the opening of their 10th Utah auto repair shop. To complement the events, BIGFOOT will be on location for a car crush and photo opportunities.

The Online Shopping Experience at www.peninsulageneral.com is Fast and Provides Customers with More Choices

RideClean is an all-in-one premium ultra polisher & sealer and it's made in the USA.

New system will offer faster service and even more attractive auto insurance quotes to residents of California.

Market-leading impact protection brand D3O is a common denominator in three ISPO 2019 award-winning products

To accommodate rapid growth and expansion of the product line, BMS promotes one of their top dealers to lead them into the next decade.

In celebration of National Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month, Personal Injury Attorney Ed Smith Offers Tips to Help Motorcyclists Ride Safely

D. Miller & Associates, PLLC hosted the third annual motorcycle ride to raise money for those affected by traumatic brain injury.

For more than forty years Jan Gehl has helped to transform urban environments around the world based on his research into the ways people actually use — or could use — the spaces where they live and work.

In Cities For People (Washington : Island Press, 2010), his revolutionary new book, Gehl presents his latest work creating (or recreating) cityscapes on a human scale. He clearly explains the methods and tools he uses to reconfigure unworkable cityscapes into the landscapes he believes they should be: cities for people.

Taking into account changing demographics and changing lifestyles, Gehl explains how to develop cities that are lively, safe, sustainable, and healthy.

The book is extensively illustrated with over 700 photos and drawings of examples from Gehl’s work around the globe. Jan Gehl is based in Copenhagen.

Intelligent Transportation Systems, or ITS, integrates different computing, control, and communication technologies to help monitor and manage traffic management that helps reduce congestion while saving lives, time, and money.

While mobility and safety are the primary objectives of any good transportation system, security has also become an equally important consideration in their design and operation.

This new work, Transportation Infrastructure Security Utilizing Intelligent Transportation Systems (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2008), provides a comprehensive treatment of techniques to leverage ITS in support of security and safety for surface transportation infrastructure.

Through the book's multidisciplinary approach, readers gain a comprehensive introduction to the diverse aspects of transportation infrastructure security as well as how ITS can reduce risks and be protected from threats with such topics as computer systems, risk analysis, and multi-modal transportation systems.

This book, which will serve as a textbook and guide, provides:

• Current ITS approaches to security issues such as freight security, disaster and evacuation response, HAZMAT incidents, rail security, and ITS Wide Area Alerts
• Guidance on the development of a regional transportation security plan
• Securing ITS itself and privacy issues involved in any collection and use of personally identifiable tracking data
• Exercises, question-and-answer sections, and other helpful review tools for the reader

Filling a gap in the practical application of security, this book offers both students and transportation professionals valuable insights into the new security challenges encountered and how to manage these challenges with the use of computerized transportation systems.

Railways are an environmentally friendly means of transport well suited to modern society.

However, noise and vibration are key obstacles to further development of the railway networks for high-speed intercity traffic, for freight and for suburban metros and light-rail.

Railway Noise And Vibration: Mechanisms, Modelling And Means Of Control (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2009) brings together coverage of the theory of railway noise and vibration with practical applications of noise control technology at source to solve noise and vibration problems from railways.

Each source of noise and vibration is described in a systematic way: rolling noise, curve squeal, bridge noise, aerodynamic noise, ground vibration and ground-borne noise, and vehicle interior noise.

This work also discusses in full the theoretical background and practical workings of railway noise, including the latest research findings, and forms an extended case study in the application of noise control techniques.

Author David Thompson is Professor of Railway Noise and Vibration at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton (U.K.).

This week, we highlight three new titles from the ASPA Series in Public Administration and Public Policy.

Market disruptions, climate change, and health pandemics lead the growing list of challenges faced by today’s leaders. These issues, along with countless others that do not make the daily news, require novel thinking and collaborative action to find workable solutions. However, many administrators stumble into collaboration without a strategic orientation.

Using a practitioner-oriented style, Strategic Collaboration In Public And Non-Profit Administration: A Practice-Based Approach To Solving Shared Problems provides guidance on how to collaborate more effectively, with less frustration and better results.

Linking collaboration theory to effective practice, this book offers essential advice that fosters shared understanding, creative answers, and transformation results through strategic collaborative action. With an emphasis on application, it uses scenarios, real-world cases, tables, figures, tools, and checklists to highlight key points.

The appendix includes supplemental resources such as collaboration operating guidelines, a meeting checklist, and a collaboration literature review to help public and nonprofit managers successfully convene, administer, and lead collaboration. The book presents a framework for engaging in collaboration in a way that stretches current thinking and advances public service practice.

A guidebook through the minefield of government contracting and procurement, Government Contracting: Promises and Perils describes the dangerous practices commonly applied in the development and management of government contracts and provides advice for avoiding the sort of errors that might compromise their ability to protect the public interest.

It includes strategies for increasing profits for government contractors, rather than incurring burdensome costs, through compliance with government mandated subcontracting and financial management systems.

Drawing from his in-depth investigation of government agencies across the country, the author examines present-day scenarios that regularly lead public servants and government committees to manage contracts with tools that are less than optimal and to select contractors that may not be the best qualified. He then delineates practical processes, contracting documents, and contract management tools to mitigate detrimental outcomes and alternative approaches to supplant the imperfect methodologies.

The author includes a CD-ROM with the book that provides a number of practical tools that you can apply as well as examples of contracts and templates that are the best he discovered during his research. The book also outlines an approach for performing advance contract planning, conducting contract negotiations, and administering contracts useful when planning for the management of the contracting process throughout the contracting cycle, negotiating a contract that protects the interest of all contracting parties, and ensuring successful contractor performance.

Filling a gap in project management literature, Managing Public Sector Projects: A Strategic Framework for Success in an Era of Downsized Government supplies managers and administrators—at all levels of government—with expert guidance on all aspects of public sector project management.

From properly allocating risks in drafting contracts to dealing with downsized staffs and privatized services, this book clearly explains the technical concepts and the political issues involved.

In line with the principles of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the PMBOK^® (Project Management Body of Knowledge), David S. Kassel establishes a framework those in the public sector can follow to ensure the success of their public projects and programs. He supplies more than 30 real-life examples to illustrate the concepts behind the framework—including reconstruction projects in Iraq, the Big Dig project in Boston, local sewer system and library construction projects, and software technology.

This authoritative resource provides strategic recommendations for effective planning, execution, and maintenance of public projects. It also:

• Highlights the differences between managing projects in the public sector versus the private sector
• Explains how to scrutinize costs, performance claims, and the backgrounds of prospective contractors
• Presents key safeguards that should be included in all contracts with contractors, consultants, suppliers, and other service providers
• Details the basics of project cost estimation, design and scheduling, and how to hold contractors responsible for meeting established project standards

In an age of downsized government and in the face of a general distrust of public service, this book is a dependable guide for avoiding management practices that are common to projects that fail and for adopting the practices common to projects that succeed in terms of cost, schedule, and quality.

The need for effective public transport is greater than ever in the 21st century. With countries like China and India moving towards mass-automobility, we face the prospects of an environmental and urban health disaster unless alternatives are found--it is time to move beyond the automobile age.

But while public transport has worked well in the dense cores of some big cities, the problem is that most residents of developed countries now live in dispersed suburbs and smaller cities and towns. These places usually have little or no public transport, and most transport commentators have given up on the task of changing this: it all seems too hard.

Transport For Suburbia: Beyond The Automobile Age (London: Earthscan, 2010) argues that the secret of European-style public transport lies in a generalizable model of network planning that has worked in places as diverse as rural Switzerland, the Brazilian city of Curitiba and the Canadian cities of Toronto and Vancouver. It shows how this model can be adapted to suburban, exurban and even rural areas to provide a genuine alternative to the car, and outlines the governance, funding and service planning policies that underpin the success of the world's best public transport systems.

Getting To Know ArcGIS Desktop (Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2010) introduces principles of GIS as it teaches the mechanics of using ESRI’s leading technology.

Key concepts are combined with detailed illustrations and step-by-step exercises to acquaint readers with the building blocks of ArcGIS Desktop including ArcMap, for displaying and querying maps, ArcCatalog, for organizing geographic data, and ModelBuilder, for diagramming and processing solutions to complex spatial analysis problems.

Its broad scope, simple style, and practical orientation make this book an ideal classroom text and an excellent resource for those learning GIS on their own.

The factors affecting the economic viability of high speed rail lines include the level of expected riders, costs, and public benefits, which are influenced by a line's corridor and service characteristics.

High speed rail tends to attract riders in dense, highly populated corridors, especially when there is congestion on existing transportation modes.

Characteristics of the proposed service are also key considerations, as high speed rail attracts riders where it compares favorably to travel alternatives with regard to door-to-door trip times, prices, frequency of service, reliability and safety.

In High Speed Passenger Rail: Viability, Challenges And Federal Role (New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2010), a strategic vision for high speed rail is offered, particularly in relation to the role that high speed rail can play in the national transportation system, clearly identifying potential objectives and goals for high speed rail systems and the roles that federal and other stakeholders should play in achieving each objective and goal.

The recently enacted Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 will likely increase the federal role in the development of high speed rail, as will the newly enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

The Metro Transportation Library has begun collecting, cataloging and providing access to “digital” documents via our online catalog. These important resources have been produced and disseminated in electronic format – rather than being released “on paper.”

Up until now, we had been providing access to plenty of digitized documents - those which were scanned to provide electronic portability for resource sharing.

Some of our print documents (books, reports, etc.) had digital versions published along with print copies, and we had linked to those in our online catalog. Other items that were published in print were scanned to create a PDF document, allowing them to be emailed or easily accessed in other ways. For example, our collection of historic L.A. transit plans offers numerous full-text digital documents.

In both cases, the digital documents supplemented the original print versions. They appear in our online catalog just as a book does, but with links to a URL that opens the PDF document for that title.

However, more and more information is being “born digital” -- published electronically, as opposed to in print format. Rather than printing these items out to add to our collection, we are cataloging the electronic version to conserve resources and provide better access and more options for our users.

We wanted to share with you some of the many benefits of growing our digital documents collection and why it is important to capture these “born digital” documents for posterity.

Digital documents do not take up valuable space. We save paper (and time, and ink) by not printing out electronic documents. We save additional resources by not binding, labeling and barcoding printed documents, as well as other physical processing. Cataloging the electronic version provides all the content directly to our users in a direct, cost-efficient manner.

Digital documents do not get lost or stolen. The Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library & Archive has its own server space to host digital documents in our digital libraries. We have created organized directories to facilitate sharing resources in a timely manner. By storing the documents electronically on our own servers, they are easily located and safeguarded from disappearing from the collection. There are numerous ways books, reports and other print documents can disappear from a collection: theft, mis-shelving, loss, never returned after checkout, or sustaining damage that hinders their use. Electronic access does not pose these problems.

Digital documents can serve multiple users simultaneously. While there is something to be said for the experience of curling up in bed with a great book, that book can only be experienced by one person at a time. Libraries are embracing eBooks because they reduce or eliminate the wait time for popular titles.

Likewise, our digital documents collection will accommodate multiple users at the same time. For example, when lengthy environmental impact reports (EIRs) are released to the public for review and comment, we now provide the user with the ability to consume this information at the same time as others, as well as at the time and place of his or her choosing.

Digital documents are findable as well as searchable. These resources are located the same way as other material formats in our collection. Our users will find relevant digital documents when searching the online catalog, although we do not currently have the ability to limit search results to only digital documents.

However, once a digital document is found, the user can open the link to the PDF and execute a keyword search within the document for the information they want.

Users can quickly locate specific data or text with a few keystrokes from home or their mobile device, as opposed to making a request of the Metro Library, having staff search for and locate a print document, scanning or sending the document to the user, and the user then searching through it for the information they need.

Like online news stories that disappear all too quickly, some resources that should persist forever often go away before they can be accessed. References to them often last longer than the access provided by the producer, leading users to waste time trying to track down something that no longer exists.

Transit advocacy groups go by the wayside, organizations merge with others, while other entities change their Internet domain names -- all these scenarios cause users to waste time searching for vanished resources, or search for URL links to desired documents that cannot be found.

Creating a lasting home for these items and making them permanently accessible meets these challenges. By cataloging electronic resources that fit our collection profile, we not only provide access to them, but preserve them as well.

As one of the premier transportation research collections in the country, we want to grow our collection to remain responsive to Metro’s ambitious mobility agenda moving forward. We can achieve this without using up more physical space or many of the costs associated with print documents.

Finally, we are mindful that more and more users will be accessing our collection via mobile devices in the coming years. New smartphones, e-readers and iPads allow students, researchers, historians, and anyone interested in transportation information the ability to access us however they like.

These devices will continue to provide users with greater amounts of information, more quickly, and in more customizable fashion, where they want and need it. Our growing digital documents collection helps us prepare for these for 24/7 access needs: anytime, anywhere.

In 1920, as its population began to explode, Los Angeles was a largely pastoral city of bungalows and palm trees. Thirty years later, choked with smog and traffic, the city had become synonymous with urban sprawl and unplanned growth.

Yet Los Angeles was anything but unplanned, as Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod reveals in this compelling, visually oriented history of the metropolis during its formative years. In a deft mix of cultural and intellectual history that brilliantly illuminates the profound relationship between imagination and place, Inventing Autopia: Dreams And Visions Of The Modern Metropolis In Jazz Age Los Angeles (Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2009) shows how the clash of irreconcilable utopian visions and dreams resulted in the invention of an unforeseen new form of urbanism--sprawling, illegible, fractured--that would reshape not only Southern California but much of the nation in the years to come.

At 401 pages, it could seem like a daunting read, but those interested in Los Angeles history, urbanization, or the rise of the automobile will find this enjoyable. It's a great compliment to the Metro Library's historic transit and transportation studies collection. Many of these documents, which date back to 1911, have been digitized and are available on our website in full-text PDF.

Axelrod focuses on the 1920s when Los Angeles was growing at a fast clip. As we noted back in July, the number of automobile registrations in Los Angeles County quadrupled between 1914 and 1922 - making it very clear that the city's embrace of the auto would set the stage for decades of congestion and other issues.

Going back further in history is another equally seminal story about transportation in the West. Acclaimed historian Walter R. Borneman has written a dazzling account of the battle to build the first transportation system across America.

Rival Rails: The Race To Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad (New York: Random House, 2010) is an action-packed epic of how an empire was born—and the remarkable men who made it happen.

After the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the rest of the country was up for grabs, and the race was on. The prize: a better, shorter, less snowy route through the corridors of the American Southwest, linking Los Angeles to Chicago.

Borneman lays out in compelling detail the sectional rivalries, contested routes, political posturing, and ambitious business dealings that unfolded as an increasing number of lines pushed their way across the country.

The author brings to life the legendary business geniuses and so-called robber barons who made millions and fought the elements—and one another—to move America, including:

William Jackson Palmer, whose leadership of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad relied on innovative narrow gauge trains that could climb steeper grades and take tighter curves;

Collis P. Huntington of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific lines, a magnate insatiably obsessed with trains—and who was not above bribing congressmen to satisfy his passion;

Edward Payson Ripley, visionary president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, whose fiscal conservatism and smarts brought the industry back from the brink; and

Jay Gould, ultrasecretive, strong-armer and one-man powerhouse.

In addition, Borneman captures the herculean efforts required to construct these roads—the laborers who did the back-breaking work, boring tunnels through mountains and throwing bridges across unruly rivers, the brakemen who ran atop moving cars, the tracklayers crushed and killed by runaway trains.

From backroom deals in Washington, D.C., to armed robberies of trains in the wild deserts, from glorified cattle cars to streamliners and Super Chiefs, all the great incidents and innovations of a mighty American era are re-created with unprecedented power in this new work destined to be a classic.

Turning now to urban planning, author Patrick Condon discusses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design rules that can, if followed, help save the planet.

Seven Rules For Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies For The Post Carbon World (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2010) clearly connects the form of our cities to their ecological, economic, and social consequences. This book takes on a wide range of complex and contentious issues and distills them down to convincing and practical solutions.

Of particular importance is how city form affects the production of planet-warming greenhouse gases. The author explains this relationship in an accessible way, and goes on to show how conforming to seven simple rules for community design could literally do a world of good. Each chapter in the book explains one rule in depth, adding a wealth of research to support each claim. If widely used, Condon argues, these rules would lead to a much more livable world for future generations—a world that is not unlike the better parts of our own.

In Last Exit: Privatization And Deregulation Of The U.S. Transportation System (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2010), Clifford Winston reminds us that transportation services and infrastructure in the United States were originally introduced by private firms.

The case for subsequent public ownership and management of the system was weak, in his view, and here he assesses the case for privatization and deregulation to greatly improve Americans satisfaction with their transportation systems. How can this be done?

Writing in the New York Times, Harvard University economics professor Edward L. Glaeser points out that:

Because the public sector controls almost all roads, airports and urban transit, we see the downsides of public control on a daily basis, but we don’t experience the social costs that could accompany privatization. A private airport operator might try to exploit its monopoly power over a particular market or cut costs in a way that increases the probability of very costly, but rare, disaster.

The complexity and risks of switching to private provision means that Mr. Winston is wise to call for experimentation rather than wholesale privatization. An incremental process of trying things out will provide information and build public support.

Yet many of Mr. Winston’s recommendations are incremental and can be done without privatization or much risk.

The book covers privatization and deregulation of roads, airports, air traffic control, mass transit, intercity buses and railway networks.

Election Day has come and gone. Yesterday, our daily Transportation Headlines highlighted the Center For Transportation Excellence's state-by-state results of all transportation ballot measures in 2010.

43 of 56 measures passed: a 77% success rate.

This Friday, CFTE will host a webinar recapping the outcomes of this year's transportation measures across the country and take a look at key trends from other recent elections.

Free Webinar: Trends And Results From 2010 Transportation Ballot Measures (Register Here)

Hosted by the Center for Transportation Excellence, NAPTA and APTA State Transit Association Leaders

Fri, Nov 5, 2010 10:00 AM - 11:00 PM PST

CFTE's State-By-State 2010 Transportation Ballot Measures results

CFTE's report: Transportation Finance At The Ballot Box: Voters Support Increased Investment & Choice (34p. PDF)

Transportation For America's Future Of Transportation Nation Survey (26p. PDF : March, 2010), for which a summary of survey findings can be found here.

In August 2007, the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis, MN, collapsed, killing 13 and injuring 145 others. Investigations following the tragedy revealed that it could have been prevented. The grave reality is that it is a tragedy that threatens to be repeated at many of the thousands of bridges located across the nation.

In Too Big To Fall: America's Failing Infrastructure And The Way Forward (New York: Foster, 2010), author Barry LePatner chronicles the problems that led to the I-35W catastrophe — poor bridge design,shoddy maintenance, ignored expert repair recommendations, and misallocated funding — and digs through the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on the tragedy, which failed to present the full story.

From there LePatner evaluates what the I-35W Bridge collapse means for the country as a whole — outlining the possibility of a nationwide infrastructure breakdown.

He exposes government failure on a national as well as state level, explains why we must maintain an effective infrastructure system — including how it plays a central role in supporting both our nation’s economic strength and our national security — and rounds out the book by providing his own well-researched solutions.

Too Big to Fall presents an eye-opening critique of a bureaucratic system that has allowed political best interests to trump those of the American people. It contains special comments by James Oberstar, the outgoing Chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure.

Cities are the engines of the economic growth and the foundation of our prosperity. But what will become of them as our world gets hotter?

In Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive In The Hotter Future (New York: Basic, 2010), Matthew Kahn, one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of the environment and of cities, argues that our future lies in our ability to adapt. Cities and regions will slowly transform as we change our behaviors and our surroundings in response to the changing climate. Kahn - professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, the UCLA School of Public Affairs' Department of Public Policy, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research - shows us how this will happen.

The author is optimistic about the quality of our lives in the cities of the future, despite a high chance of less hospitable climate conditions than we face today. At the heart of his conviction in a bright future is our individual freedom of choice. This personal freedom will reveal pathways that will greatly help urbanites cope with climate change.

Taking the reader on a tour of the world's cities - from New York to Los Angeles, Beijing to Mumbai - Kahn's clear-eyed, engaging, and optomistic messages presents a positive yet realistic picture of what our urban future will look like.

An entire chapter is devoted to Los Angeles, including sub-sections titled "Los Angeles Has A Subway?" and "Could Public Transit Become Hip In Los Angeles?"

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.

Avid readers of local history are usually intrigued by photos of historic sites juxtaposed against contemporary images. This format of visual history has a particularly strong impact when the subject is Los Angeles: a city that grew up -- and outward -- so quickly.

Those seeking pictorial overviews will likely have checked out aerial photography books as well.

Los Angeles From The Air: Then And Now (San Diego: Thunder Bay Press, 2010) is a hybrid of these two types of pictorial books. It presents decades-old photographs of both familiar and lesser-known landmarks along side more current ones.

This takes the reader on a trip through Los Angeles like never before, featuring inspiring, sky-high then-and-now images of some of LA's most famous locations.

Some of the landmarks' origins are well-known, but the authors provide context for both familiar and hidden pieces of Los Angeles history.

Many of the photos feature snow-capped peaks in the distance -- a testament to our clear Winter days being the best for photography.

Unfortunately, the work falls flat in its description of transportation in downtown Los Angeles. The authors write:

"Metrolink [sic] provides service to Union Station in the form of three rail lines -- Red, Purple, Gold..."

While Metro and Metrolink may sound similar to those outside of Los Angeles (the book is, after all, published in San Diego), it gives one pause that other information found here may not be entirely accurate. Ultimately, one can ignore the text entirely, as these beautiful photos speak for themselves.

In Makeshift Metropolis: Ideas About Cities (New York: Scribner, 2010), noted architecture writer Witold Rybczynski offers a glimpse of an urban future that might very well serve as a template for cities around the world.

Rybczynski integrates history and prediction of the development of the American city in a brisk look back that takes us from colonial town planning to the Garden City and City Beautiful initiatives of the early 20th century and on to the "Big Box Era."

He also examines how contemporary urban designers and planners are revisiting and refreshing older urban ideas, such as bringing gardens to a blighted Brooklyn waterfront.

Rybczynski's study is kept relevant by his focus on what the past can teach us about creating the "cities we want" and "cities we need."

The prose is instructive and always engaging, and the author's enthusiasm for the future of cities and his enduring love of urban settings of all kinds is evident.

He not only writes about what people want from their cities, he inspires the reader to imagine the possibilities.

In Down The Asphalt Path: The Automobile And The American City, author Clay McShane examines the uniquely American relationship between "automobility" and urbanization.

Writing at the cutting edge of urban and technological history, he depicts how new technology, namely the private automobile, and the modernization of the American city redefined each other.

The author motors us across the country -- from Boston to New York, from Milwaukee to Los Angeles and the suburbs in between -- chronicling the urban embrace of the automobile.

The New York Times calls this work "A treat to read, loaded with interesting facts...a notable book about urban transportation."

Barron's wrote that "this fascinating, well-researched history of the automobile industry...is written from a social and cultural perspective rarely included in traditional books about the business."

The Whole Earth Review claims "this fascinating treatise is the most credible look yet at how automobiles have changed American society for better or worse."

Everyone is calling for smart growth...but what exactly is it?

In The Smart Growth Manual (New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2009), two leading city planners provide a thorough answer. From the expanse of the metropolis to the detail of the window box, they address the pressing challenges of urban development with easy-to-follow advice and broad array of best practices.

With their landmark book Suburban Nation, Andres Duany and Jeff Speck "set forth more clearly than anyone has done in our time the elements of good town planning" (The New Yorker).

In this long-awaited companion volume, the authors have organized the latest contributions of new urbanism, green design, and healthy communities into a comprehensive handbook, fully illustrated with the built work of the nation's leading practitioners.

This work also features a valuable Smart Growth Directory, with contact information for national, regional and state organizations.

Lieutenant Governor-Elect Gavin Newsom, writing as Mayor of San Francisco, touted The Smart Growth Manual as "an indispensable guide to city planning. This kind of progressive development is the only way to full restore our economic strength and create new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete in the first rank of world economies."

An extensive interview with the authors is featured on the American Society of Landscape Architects "The Dirt" blog.

The conventional wisdom says that we need strict planning to build walkable neighborhoods around transit stations - even though these neighborhoods are like the streetcar suburbs that were common in America before anyone heard of city planning.

In reality, many of our greatest successes in urban design have occurred when we treated the issues as political questions - not as technical problems that the planners should solve for us.

According to Unplanning: Livable Cities And Political Choices (Berkeley, Calif.: Preservation Institute, 2010), the anti-freeway movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the anti-sprawl movement of recent decades were both political movements, and citizen-activists often had to work against projects that planners proposed and approved.

This book uses an intriguing thought experiment to show that, in order to build livable cities, we should go further than the anti-freeway and anti-sprawl movements by putting direct political limits on urban growth.

Political choices about how we want to live can transform our cities more effectively than planning.

From animal paths to superhighways, transportation has been the backbone of American expansion and growth.

Asphalt And Politics: A History Of The American Highway System (New York: McFarland, 2009) examines the interstate highway system in the United States, and the forces that shaped it, includes the introduction of the automobile, the Good Roads Movement, and the Lincoln Highway Association.

The book offers an analysis of state and federal road funding, modern road-building options, and the successes and failures of the current highway system.