Best Books on Livable Communities
1. 
The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community
by:
Ray Oldenburg
3.86 avg rating — 982 ratings 
3. 
What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?: How Money Really Does Grow on Trees
by:
Tony Juniper
4.21 avg rating — 411 ratings 4. 
Deepening Community: Finding Joy Together in Chaotic Times
by:
Paul Born
3.58 avg rating — 118 ratings 5. 
The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods
by:
John McKnight
3.83 avg rating — 439 ratings 
8. 
When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself
by:
Steve Corbett
4.20 avg rating — 13,904 ratings 9. 
The Key to Sustainable Cities: Meeting Human Needs, Transforming Community Systems 3.58 avg rating — 19 ratings
10. 
12. 
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
by:
Robert D. Putnam
3.85 avg rating — 8,655 ratings 13. 
The Resurgence Of The Real: Body, Nature, And Place In A Hypermodern World 3.71 avg rating — 38 ratings
13. 
Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists, and Quiet Lovers of Justice
by:
Si Kahn
3.77 avg rating — 145 ratings 15. 
Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape
by:
Jill Jonnes
3.82 avg rating — 302 ratings 
17. 
For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future
by:
Herman E. Daly
4.17 avg rating — 168 ratings 18. 
Changing Places: Rebuilding Community in the Age of Sprawl
by:
Richard Moe
3.73 avg rating — 30 ratings 19. 
Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens 4.45 avg rating — 3,467 ratings
21. 
Blessing the Hands That Feed Us: What Eating Closer to Home Can Teach Us About Food, Community, and Our Place on Earth
by:
Vicki Robin
3.38 avg rating — 272 ratings 22. 
Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets 4.12 avg rating — 149 ratings
23. 
More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave 4.07 avg rating — 410 ratings
23. 
Building a Better World in Your Backyard - Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys
by:
Paul Wheaton
3.98 avg rating — 340 ratings 23. 
Performing Communities: Grassroots Ensemble Theaters Deeply Rooted in Eight U.S. Communities 4.06 avg rating — 16 ratings
23. 
In This Together: How Republicans, Democrats, Capitalists and Activists Are Uniting to Tackle Climate Change and More
by:
Trammell S. Crow
4.64 avg rating — 14 ratings 23. 
23. 
23. 
Adasiyyih: The Story of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Model Farming Community
by:
Paul Hanley
4.80 avg rating — 10 ratings 36. 
Reclaiming Our Food: How the Grassroots Food Movement Is Changing the Way We Eat 3.88 avg rating — 49 ratings
36. 
Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community
by:
Sue E. Estroff
3.64 avg rating — 33 ratings 36. 
I Am Not a Tractor!: How Florida Farmworkers Took On the Fast Food Giants and Won
by:
Susan L. Marquis
4.32 avg rating — 44 ratings 
36. 
New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development
by:
Arlene Goldbard
3.82 avg rating — 60 ratings 36. 
The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time 3.44 avg rating — 182 ratings
36. 
The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement
by:
Nick Saul
4.13 avg rating — 330 ratings 
45. 
The Politics of Gratitude: Scale, Place & Community in a Global Age
by:
Mark T. Mitchell
4.22 avg rating — 18 ratings 
45. 
45. 
Messianism Against Christology: Resistance Movements, Folk Arts, and Empire 4.88 avg rating — 8 ratings
45. 
Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities
by:
Jeff Mapes
3.90 avg rating — 526 ratings 45. 
The Eco Principle: Ecology and Economics in Symbiosis
by:
Arthur L. Dahl
3.67 avg rating — 3 ratings 52. 
52. 
We the People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the United States
by:
Anneke Campbell
4.15 avg rating — 13 ratings 52. 
Nature's Allies: Eight Conservationists Who Changed Our World
by:
Larry Nielsen
3.90 avg rating — 106 ratings 52. 
Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 20 ratings
58. 
58. 
Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons
by:
Silvia Federici
4.28 avg rating — 473 ratings 58. 
Edible Landscaping: Now You Can Have Your Gorgeous Garden and Eat It Too!
by:
Rosalind Creasy
4.19 avg rating — 593 ratings 62. 
62. 
Writing in Community: Say Goodbye to Writer's Block and Transform Your Life
by:
Lucy Adkins
4.38 avg rating — 26 ratings 
62. 
Acting Together II: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict: Building Just and Inclusive Communities
by:
Cynthia Cohen
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings 62. 
The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy
by:
Murray Bookchin
4.17 avg rating — 826 ratings 62. 
Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, First Edition
by:
Fritz Haeg
3.62 avg rating — 255 ratings 
68. 
Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas
by:
Chris Benner
4.11 avg rating — 9 ratings 68. 
The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time
by:
Gordon Lafer
4.48 avg rating — 67 ratings 68. 
Service-Learning in Design and Planning: Educating at the Boundaries
by:
Tom Angotti
4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings 68. 
Agricultural Urbanism: Handbook for Building Sustainable Food & Agric Systems in 21st Century Cities 3.67 avg rating — 9 ratings
68. 
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
by:
bell hooks
4.45 avg rating — 12,301 ratings 74. 
The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience
by:
Toby Hemenway
4.11 avg rating — 191 ratings 74. 
Unretirement: How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and the Good Life
by:
Chris Farrell
3.27 avg rating — 129 ratings 74. 
100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive 4.32 avg rating — 351 ratings
74. 
Building Together: Case Studies in Participatory Planning and Community Building
by:
Roger Katan
3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings 74. 
This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent
by:
Daegan Miller
3.95 avg rating — 75 ratings 74. 
Superbia: 31 Ways to Create Sustainable Neighborhoods
by:
Daniel D. Chiras
3.71 avg rating — 52 ratings 80. 
No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative
by:
Edgar S. Cahn
4.12 avg rating — 48 ratings 
80. 
Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature
by:
William Cronon
4.17 avg rating — 813 ratings 85. 
85. 
The Anthropology of Utopia: Essays on Social Ecology and Community Development
by:
Dan Chodorkoff
4.20 avg rating — 15 ratings 
85. 
Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways To Make Nature More Visible
by:
Simon Barnes
3.91 avg rating — 2,235 ratings 
90. 
Counterfeit Community: The Exploitation of Our Longings for Connectedness
by:
John F. Freie
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 16 ratings 90. 
Acting in Concert: Music, Community, and Political Action
by:
Mark Mattern
3.93 avg rating — 15 ratings 90. 
Retreat from a Rising Sea: Hard Choices in an Age of Climate Change
by:
Orrin H. Pilkey
4.05 avg rating — 83 ratings 90. 
90. 
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding 4.13 avg rating — 639 ratings
90. 
96. 
The New Localism: How Cities Can Thrive in the Age of Populism
by:
Bruce Katz
3.48 avg rating — 290 ratings 96. 
Craft Activism: People, Ideas, and Projects from the New Community of Handmade and How You Can Join In
by:
Joan Tapper
3.69 avg rating — 249 ratings 96. 
Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, And What We Can Do About It 4.06 avg rating — 314 ratings
96. 
Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard 4.37 avg rating — 6,370 ratings
