Ah, the ghost of New York's "master builder." There's no purging him, is there? Even as clean-up workers were still unearthing human remains from Ground Zero, pressure was building on Garvin to hurry up and deliver a master reconstruction plan in a New York minute -- long-term consequences be damned.

This month, just as Garvin plunges forward with a design that will remake Manhattan on a Moses-like scale, McGraw-Hill is reissuing a newly updated version of his critically acclaimed 1995 book, The American City: What Works, What Doesn't. If Garvin's blueprint for a revitalized downtown reflects the urban philosophy he's sketched out in his book, New Yorkers need not fret the second coming of Robert Moses.

Garvin's credo is straightforward: "Only when a project also has a beneficial impact on the surrounding community can it be considered successful planning. For him, there is no singular, shining model of urban planning that can be carbon-copied; a particular region, city, or neighborhood has its own distinct features and assets that need to be capitalized on by a given project.

Encyclopedic in scale, The American City is a sweeping survey of more than 250 urban and suburban revitalization projects in America. To fine-tune his recipe for a successful formula, Garvin casts his eye over the last hundred years. He cites Chicago's creation of a lakeshore network of parks in the early 1900s -- which spurred a residential housing boom -- as one successful example. Historic preservation, as it was pioneered by Charleston and New Orleans in the mid-20th Century, is another kind.

Portland's recent rebirth also embodies, to Garvin, another successful model -- and on a much larger and fuller scale. After the city invested in a riverfront park, mass transit (a light-rail system), and walkable streets, the business community responded in kind, resulting in a boomlet of retail stores, office buildings, hotels, and apartment houses.

"Thus," Garvin concludes, "urban planning should be defined as public action that will produce a sustained and widespread private market reaction." In particular, he indicts Moses' brand of redevelopment as producing the opposite effect, because many of his colossal structures -- such as the recently razed New York Coliseum and the superblock housing projects -- resulted in a form of de facto segregation, in which residents in the area were effectively cut off from their neighbors. "This separation," Garvin writes, prevents any redevelopment benefits from "spilling over into surrounding neighborhoods and thus stimulating further private activity."

A well-respected professor of planning and architecture at Yale University, Garvin's ethos is part Frederick Law Olmsted, part Jane Jacobs: he's passionate about parks and open space but he's also an ardent proponent of mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. The dapper academic, who favors bowties, is also no ivory-tower theorist; he's been a member of the New York City Planning Commission for the last seven years, and from 1970 to 1980, he served in city government as deputy commissioner of housing and director of comprehensive planning. Perhaps most importantly, nothing in Garvin's book or career suggests he is about to turn into a 21st century public works despot a la Moses.

"Whether such redevelopment requires federal subsidies is not at all clear," writes Alexander Garvin in The American City: What Works, What Doesn't. Garvin should know: He's the city's chief planner at Ground Zero.

Since the late 19th century, Americans have endeavored to tame the country?s cities. Numerous initiatives have been directed at assuring economic viability, enhancing urban form and function, and generally making cities healthy, socially attractive, and desirable to investors. In the second edition (1st ed., CH, May ?96) of this compilation of more than 250 projects in over 100 cities, Garvin (professional urban planner and adjunct professor, urban planning and management, Yale Univ.) asses the strategies used in the last half-century to improve the physical city. Thirteen core chapters review efforts from parks and playgrounds to housing schemes, pedestrian-friendly streets, cultural centers, neighborhood revitalization, and residential suburbs. Replete with illustrations, these chapters also introduce a variety of policy tools; business improvement districts, home mortgage guarantees, and tax abatements among others. Additionally, Garvin provides separate chapters on land use regulations, comprehensive planning, and historic preservation. The book culminates with a list of six ingredients for project success ? market demand, location, design, financing, entrepreneurship, and timing ? and a call for strategic public actions that generate a positive private market response and sustainable projects. No other book offers such a comprehensive and practical overview of urban reinvestment initiatives. Highly recommended for collections supporting upper-division undergraduate students through professionals and two-year technical program students.

Each of the 18 chapters describes various projects and demonstrates how the six ingredients affect the success or failure of planning in specific areas: for example, housing rehabilitation, revitalizing neighborhoods, land use regulation, and preserving the past. Some of the projects described in the 1st edition are updated, as is all of the statistical information. Sections on some newer areas of concern -- entertainment centers, stadiums, environmental issues, and loft housing -- are also added. The table of contents presents an outline of the information in each chapter, making it fairly easy to find subtopics of a particular area; however, the index makes it possible to find specific projects and more detailed information. The text is enhanced by the inclusion of well-chosen black-and-white photographs, some showing before and after views of urban, and occasionally suburban, development.

Although the book will probably be used most often by students and professionals in some aspect of urban planning, the easy-to-read style, interesting content, and photographs will make it appreciated by others who are interested in making the future of their own environments more beautiful and practically livable. Both academic and public libraries should find this a useful addition to their collection.