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
This thoughtful book offers us a timely reminder of the vital importance of urban context. Context not in a simple hankering for the past, but instead in a recognition that by choosing to carry traces of the past into the future we can ground ourselves today in a more fulfilling present.
— Matthew Carmona, Professor of Planning and Urban Design at The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London
In Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices, Chuck Wolfe with Tigran Haas deliver an in-depth, knowledgeable and impassioned plea for embracing a co-created approach to urban change in a careful and inclusive way.
They introduce an exciting new framework for understanding the culture and character of a particular context through a holistic and blended approach to the advocacy of multivalent viewpoints, with particular and careful attention to citizen dialogue and the day-to-day lived experiences of its local community.
The book advocates for a multiplicity of views and constituents, and draws in a wide range of expert voices that give chorus to the books main themes. The content is cleverly staged into concise sequential sections that is fluently written and has relevance and accessibility to a wide readership of those interested in the continual evolution of their local environments.
— Paul Sanders, professor of Architecture, Deakin University, Australia
Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character urges those of us who work with cities to re-embrace respect, learning and listening as fundamental starting points for our work. It calls us to engage in a practice built on better relationships with our cities—relationships anchored on understanding instead of superficial projection or copy-and-paste urbanism. It then tantalizes us with compelling examples of what we might gain in doing so. A nice reminder for the professional seeking fresh inspiration, and compelling introduction for students involved in urban studies, planning, and other city-building disciplines.
— Laura Tate, PhD, consultant and co-editor of Planning for AuthentiCITIES, and author of Post-Rational Planning: A Solutions-oriented Call to Justice
In Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices, Charles Wolfe and Tigran Haas share forward-looking techniques for identifying and nurturing the complex culture of a city. Eminently readable, the book deepens our understanding of authenticity and heritage, but perhaps most importantly, highlights the possibilities unleashed by listening to citizen expertise.
— Thompson M. Mayes, chief legal officer and general counsel, National Trust for Historic Preservation
In this third book, Chuck Wolfe is at his best as raconteur of city life, places, and people. Drawing from a large swath of urban history and crisscrossing the 'pond' (and beyond) with gusto, Wolfe entices the reader with numerous lively examples of places that have kept culture and character over long periods of time. He and Tigran Haas offer useful ways for the reader to test and practice the book's central idea of sustaining a city's culture and character. Coming out during the Covid-19 pandemic, the book will bring hope and joy, reminding us how vibrant our cities have been and surely will be again. The text is further enriched with remarkable photos by the author and selected artist depictions of urban places.
— Anne Vernez Moudon, Dr es Sc, professor emerita of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington, Urban Form Lab
Wolfe and Haas ask one of the biggest questions of our time: What is place? What is culture? In a post-covid world, places will be driven by local experience, authenticity and, importantly, identity. This book is an important guide for anyone designing human-centered places.
— Lucinda Hartley, cofounder, Neighbourlytics, Melbourne, Australia
Just in time, Charles Wolfe, with the assistance of Tigran Haas, propels us forward in our work sustaining and improving quality of life, character, and engagement in communities large and small. Wolfe applies his LEARN principles to how we plan and invest in cities, eschewing simplistic and quick placemaking and planning strategies to lay out a system that focuses on prolonged and deep engagement and negotiation, among other tools. The LEARN approach avoids indiscriminate replications, embraces human experience, stories, and complexity, and acknowledges new tools to embrace social justice and political advocacy. Planners and public officials take note…Wolfe understands that HOW we plan has deep consequences and a careful read of this book can change up your toolbox to great and positive benefit for our communities and spaces.
— Susan Silberberg, author of Places in the Making: How placemaking builds places and communities, MIT 2013 and Principal of CivicMoxie, LLC
People often get trapped between the need for transformational change and the desire to preserve what makes a place special. Battle lines are drawn and dialogue gets lost. As Mayor of Seattle, and as a lifelong advocate for walkable communities, I’ve been in the middle of such conversations and know how hard they are. Chuck Wolfe and Tigran Haas invite us to fully understand a place as a predicate to help sustain its character through change.
— Mike McGinn, executive director of America Walks, Mayor of Seattle 2009-2013