"Grand Urban Rules", 2009

This interesting little book talks of an imaginary city called Averuni that lies in the Atlantic Ocean about 5 1/2 hours flying from New York City. This city represents the contemporary metropolis with American, European and Asian influences, and resembles Paris in population density. 

At some point this imaginary mega-city began to suffer from detereorating urban qualities quite similar to those affecting real cities around the globe. The mayor of Averuni ordered the forming of an urban design group to investigate the world's great cities resembling Averuni's charachter or whose problems were in some way exemplary. 

Overview of the urban "rules"

19 cities were selected including New York, Berlin, Paris, London and Hong Kong. After an intensive research the design team came up with a set of rules that serve as a steering instrument to overcome problems that rise in most contemporary cities.

The various "metropolisses" that were analysed

Though Averuni is a fictional city, the 115 rules extrapolated from the analysis of 19 great cities give the urban designer methodological tools to counterforce definite urban issues. They represent "creative acts", attempts at guiding urban destinies.

Sources:
Alex Lehnerer, Grand Urban Rules, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2009
http://books.google.com/books?id=w_60W3cJqhoC&hl=nl&source=gbs_ViewAPI
http://www.010.nl/catalogue/book.php?id=666
http://urbantick.blogspot.com/2010/03/book-grand-urban-rules.html
All images courtesy of 010 Publishers