Overview

What do Amsterdam, London, Brooklyn, Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia have in common? They are all North Atlantic cities. Charles Duff shows how the Dutch invented a new way of building cities in their “Golden Age,” the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer, and how the Dutch way of building became the normal way of building in the British Isles and on the East Coast of the United States. The key to the Dutch-style North Atlantic city is the row house, and Duff shows how the row house cities on both coasts of the ocean grew and continually adapted the Dutch inheritance to changing conditions – sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Today, as we look for ways to live satisfying lives with a low carbon footprint, the North Atlantic tradition provides a range of models that allow people to have spacious houses while supporting walking-distance retail and robust non-automotive transportation.

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9781908457530

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Reviews

"""Charles Duff's propelling curiosity takes the reader on an animated journey through a great international family of cities. His vision is both sweeping and intimate, from four centuries of great historical upheavals to the intimate fabric of small houses and characteristic streets. He argues persuasively that the North Atlantic cities materialize an imagery and reality of interdependence that lie at the heart of notions of community."" --Jeffrey Cohen, Bryn Mawr College ""I have to say that it has been some time since I enjoyed a book so much, one that takes a topic that spans 400 years, 4000 miles, and 20 cities; and still manages to drive home a clear and simple point. The only other book I've read up till now that accomplished such a marvelous feat was Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel."" --Bruce Laverty, Gladys Brooks Curator of Architecture, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia ""The distinctive features of this manuscript - sweeping scale, lovely writing, seamless integration of disparate topics (urban design, architecture, economics, family typologies, religion, municipal politics) - will be attractive to a wide audience."" --James Grubb, University of Maryland Baltimore County"

Author Information

Charles Duff is a planner, teacher, developer, and historian. In a career of more than 35 years, he has built or rebuilt more than 300 buildings and led the revival of some of Baltimore’s most successful neighbourhoods. He has been President of Jubilee Baltimore, the city’s premier community development nonprofit, since 1987, and has been President of the Baltimore Architecture Foundation. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard University, he lectures widely in America and elsewhere and has taught at Johns Hopkins University. He co-wrote Then and Now: Baltimore Architecture in 2005 and contributed to The Architecture of Baltimore. His translations of two French works on Greek tragedy were published in the US in 2010 and 2012. 

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