“The Village Homes approach is a radical improvement over conventional neighborhoods…leaves one wondering why anyone would build any other way. Village Homes has an attractive design, with some beautiful color photographs…a great resource.” -Environmental Building News, March 2004

The Village Homes neighborhood in Davis, California is one of the few long-standing examples of sustainable community design. Mark Francis has been studying Village Homes for more than two decades and brings together existing research and writing on the community, studies about the children of Village Homes he conducted throughout the 1980s, and interviews with many parties involved with the project including designers, residents, gardeners, and maintenance people. He takes a critical look at Village Homes, addressing its failures as well as its successes, and examines the question of why, despite its success, this development has not been replicated.

This book is part of The Case Studies in Land and Community Design series from the Landscape Architecture Foundation and Island Press. The series meets the need of design and planning professionals for detailed information on innovative projects that provide holistic solutions to complex social, economic, and environmental problems. Individual case studies offer in-depth analysis of important issues or projects and examine key successes and failures. They document effective approaches to land development and preservation, making that information accessible to a broad audience of practitioners, educators, and policymakers.

The case studies share a common graphical design and text format, and are printed in full color with a rich array of illustrations. Praise for the LAF series:

“admirable for the significant issues they tackle: sustainable community development, design of urban open space, and sensitive highway design. Presented in a highly illustrative format, the case studies serve as good educational primers for the public, and they will make good teaching tools.” -Landscape Architecture, March 2004

“All three books are richly illustrated, provide concise treatments of their topics in a straightforward manner and will benefit from a broad audience including policymakers, design and planning professionals, students, and educators.” -Journal of the American Planning Association, Autumn 2004.