Cities are not backdrops. They are systems that shape behavior, allocate opportunity, and decide — through design, policy, and neglect — who gets to thrive and who does not. The speakers here have spent careers thinking about why cities work the way they do and what it would take to build them better. From walkable streets to green roofs to the physics of density, these books treat the built environment as a subject worth serious attention. They are for anyone who lives in a city and has ever wondered why it feels the way it does.