Reviews of The Urban Oasis
Reviews from readers are welcome. Send to
Jerry Schneider
REVIEW COMMENT:
...It is the only lucid and realistic planning book on
automated transit issues I have ever seen...
Thomas J. McGean, specialist in innovative
transportation systems and Chairman of the Automated
Peoplemover Committee of the American Society of Civil
Engineers, October 1, 1997.
REVIEW BY ELEVATOR WORLD, December
1997, page 64:
Architect Roxanne Warren contends the pressing needs of
our cities and the equally pressing need to conserve the
Earth's resources are opposite sides of the same coin, and in
her book, The Urban Oasis, Warren proposes a way
to respond to these twin needs. In doing so, she makes a
compelling case for the benefits of high-density, mixed-use
and car-free communities that are both environmentally
attractive and easily accessible to and from regional
transportation networks.
The author argues that the "dangerous dependence on
the automobile" can be eliminated while creating livable
communities. Warren proposes a way of consolidating new
development and redevelopment, whether in a city or suburban
setting, to combine the advantages of both rural and urban
living.
Subtitled Guideways and Greenways in the Human
Environment, The Urban Oasis is focused on the
use of residential and mixed-use development clusters,
designed as pedestrian zones with abundant landscaping, which
are accessible by automated shuttles and loops to peripheral
parking. These clusters may be neighborhoods whether within a
city or in transit villages located near major transportation
corridors. The purpose is the creation of human- scale
communities that feature the convenience and satisfaction of
both country and city life by effectively reducing the
dependence on cars.
New transportation technologies are discussed in the
context of ecological and social priorities, while tracing
the development of pedestrian zones in Europe, North America
and Asia. Different projects around the world are analyzed in
an effort to determine why some pedestrian zones have
prospered as others have failed. In the process, Warren
illustrates the concepts and approaches used with numerous
drawings, site plans and photographs--among them, a
full-color insert.
Last modified: January 5, 1998