"In this memoir, David Wallace, AICP, looks back on his illustrious career - spanning more than five decades - and tells the inside story of how successful large-scale urban redevelopment projects are accomplished. Using Baltimore, Maryland, as his principal example, as well as detailed case studies from other cities, he illustrates planning and design principles and methods pioneered by his well-known design firm Wallace, McHarg, Roberts & Todd (now Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC)." "Wallace's fledgling firm's first success was in Baltimore, where WMRT produced the Charles Center redevelopment project that sparked a downtown renaissance and spectacular renewal in the adjacent Inner Harbor. The firm's next plan for the semi-rural Green Spring and Worthington Valleys region of Maryland, cited by Lewis Mumford as a model of regional planning, is one of the first examples of ecologically based smart growth in the United States." "In 1965, Wallace's firm was engaged to develop a plan for Lower Manhattan and to respond to the impact of the World Trade Center's twin towers, then under construction. Wallace conceived an urban design growth modeling procedure that became the basis for award-winning plans for the World Financial Center and Battery Park City. Wallace reflects on that experience and urges today's planners to look beyond Ground Zero and plan for all of Lower Manhattan. Wallace's innovative growth modeling procedure became a trademark of WRT's downtown planning in New Orleans, Norfolk, Miami, and other cities."--Jacket.