Books are designed to take you places. Here are a few new intellectual itineraries to get you thinking.

Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and The Fall of Cars

Samuel I. Schwartz

Millennials aren’t buying their own cars or driving in the same numbers as their predecessors. They have other ideas for the cities they inhabit, including reclaiming prime real estate on urban streets to create a bold new greener, healthier city. Street Smart checks in on some of the initiatives that are making this reinvention of the urban cityscape a reality.

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design Charles Montgomery

More people are moving into urban areas. And cities are seen as a promising cure for the environmental challenges and resource crunches of our time. But do cities make us happier? Montgomery explores that question at the intersection of urban design and the new science of happiness to offer a review of how planners are retrofit-ting cities for maximum happiness.

The New Future of Public Transportation

Paul Comfort

This second edition of a best-selling overview of the latest trends in efficient, sustainable, and accessible public transit brings Paul Comfort’s visionary gaze up to the moment. On the radar are hydrogen-fueled buses, AI-driven advancements and cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles, zero-emission initiatives, customer experience, and more.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and The Fall of New York

Robert Caro

This monumental book charts the career of Robert Moses, whose car-centric vision for the region featured ambitious ideas for bridges, highways, and public works. It’s an epic chronicle of how giant civic projects get done and the impact of urban planning on everyday people. Moses’s vision collided with urban thinkers like Jane Jacobs who had a profoundly different idea about how cities should be structured.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jane Jacobs

This timeless take on the delicate mix of elements required to make a city both vibrant and human scaled continues to inspire urban planners. The power of Jacobs’ vision famously helped stall one of Moses’s last projected roadways: an environmentally men-acing highway project envisioned in downtown New York City that would have leveled the historic Soho district. The book’s spirit continues to inform how planners approach new urban development.