front cover of Hoop Crazy
Hoop Crazy
The Lives of Clair Bee and Chip Hilton
Dennis Gildea
University of Arkansas Press, 2013
Clair Bee (1896-1983) was a hugely successful basketball coach at Rider College and Long Island University with a 412 and 87 record before his career was derailed in 1951 by a point-shaving scandal. In the trial that sent his star player, Sherman White, to prison, the judge excoriated Bee for creating a morally lax culture that contributed to his players' involvement with gambling. To a certain extent, Bee agreed with the judge's scolding, concluding that coaches, himself included, had become so driven to succeed on the court that they had lost sight of the educational role sports should play. His coaching career effectively over, Bee launched an effort to reform the ills he saw in college sports, and he did so in the pages of the Chip Hilton novels for young readers. He began the series in 1948, but it was the post-scandal books that he used as teaching tools. The books mirrored some of the events of the gambling scandal and were Bee's attempt to reform the problems plaguing college sports. He used his fiction to posit a better sports world that he hoped his young readers would construct and inhabit. The Chip Hilton books were extremely popular and have become a classic series, with over two million copies sold to date. Hoop Crazy is the fascinating story of Clair Bee and his star character Chip Hilton and the ways in which their lives, real and fictional, were intertwined.
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front cover of Human Transit
Human Transit
How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives
Jarrett Walker
Island Press, 2011
Public transit is a powerful tool for addressing a huge range of urban problems, including traffic congestion and economic development as well as climate change. But while many people support transit in the abstract, it's often hard to channel that support into good transit investments.  Part of the problem is that transit debates attract many kinds of experts, who often talk past each other.  Ordinary people listen to a little of this and decide that transit is impossible to figure out.
 
Jarrett Walker believes that transit can be simple, if we focus first on the underlying geometry that all transit technologies share. In Human Transit, Walker supplies the basic tools, the critical questions, and the means to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing transit services.
 
Human Transit explains the fundamental geometry of transit that shapes successful systems; the process for fitting technology to a particular community; and the local choices that lead to transit-friendly development. Whether you are in the field or simply a concerned citizen, here is an accessible guide to achieving successful public transit that will enrich any community.
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front cover of Human Transit, Revised Edition
Human Transit, Revised Edition
How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives
Jarrett Walker
Island Press, 2024
Transportation expert Jarrett Walker believes that transit can be simple, if we focus on the underlying geometry that all transit systems share. In Human Transit, Revised Edition, he provides the basic tools and critical questions needed to make smarter decisions about designing and implementing services, refreshed with updated information and examples.
 
The first edition of Human Transit, published in 2011, has become a classic for professionals, advocates, and interested citizens. No other book explains the basic principles of public transit in such lively and accessible prose, all based on a respect for your right to form your own opinion. Walker’s goal is not to make you share his values, but to give you the tools to clarify and advocate for yours. 

Walker has updated and expanded the book to deepen its explanations. His ongoing work as a network planning consultant has provided a wealth of new examples, images, and tools. New topics include the problem with specialization; the role of flexible or “demand response” services; how to know when to redesign your network; and responding to tech-industry claims that transit will soon be obsolete.  Finally, he has also added a major new section exploring the idea of access to opportunity as a core measure of transit’s success.

Whether you are a professional or a concerned citizen, the revised edition of this accessible guide can help you to achieve successful public transit that will enrich any community.
 
 
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