BOOKS ABOUT COMMUNITY PLANNING
Earthscan/Routledge Tools for Community Planning Books
For many years, my professional practice focused on creative community engagement, participatory planning, and social sustainability. The three co-authored professional books below, all published by Earthscan/Routledge, gather that work into practical handbooks for planners, activists, and community workers.
Summary of the Three Earthscan/Routledge Books 3.5 Planning and engagement books
My earlier books, including Kitchen Table Sustainability, SpeakOut, and Creative Community Planning, offer hands-on tools for community engagement and responsive community planning.
For international purchase of these books—Creative Community Planning, SpeakOut, and Kitchen Table Sustainability—from Earthdcan/Routledge, the official Routledge website offers global shipping and provides direct links for each title:
Creative Community Planning can be purchased internationally via Routledge.
Creative Community Planning: Transformative Engagement Methods for Working at the Edge
2010
Presents creative, often arts-based approaches to community engagement—storytelling, theatre, poetry, photography, and other embodied methods—for practitioners working “at the edge” in difficult or sensitive contexts. Offers examples and tools for more imaginative and transformative community engagement.
Routledge / Taylor & Francis page for Creative Community Planning: Transformative Engagement Methods for Working at the Edge and major online booksellers (e.g., Amazon, eBooks.com).
Available from Routledge
Kitchen Table Sustainability: Practical Recipes for Community Engagement with Sustainability
2008
Shows how to bring sustainability “down to earth” through kitchen-table conversations and small-group work instead of only formal meetings and policy documents, offering practical “recipes” to involve ordinary people in exploring sustainable futures.
Routledge / Taylor & Francis product page for Kitchen Table Sustainability and major online booksellers (e.g., Amazon, Kobo, NHBS).
SpeakOut: The Step-by-Step Guide to SpeakOuts and Community Workshops
2009
Describes the SpeakOut method for open, informal, drop-in community workshops. Offers step-by-step guidance to design, run, and follow up participatory events that welcome diverse voices, manage conflict, and make community engagement more engaging and accessible.
Routledge / Taylor & Francis page for SpeakOut: The Step-by-Step Guide to SpeakOuts and Community Workshops and major online booksellers (e.g., Amazon).
Housing as if People Mattered: Site-Design Guidelines for Medium-Density Family Housing (1986)
By Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian
Housing as if People Mattered: Site-Design Guidelines for Medium-Density Family Housing (1986)
By Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian
Housing as if People Mattered is a practical, research-based guide to designing medium-density family housing so that everyday life for residents is safe, sociable, and supportive, rather than anonymous or stressful. Co-authored by Clare Cooper Marcus and Wendy Sarkissian, it translates social and psychological insights about how people actually live into clear design principles that architects, planners, housing providers, and community groups can apply on the ground. This “evergreen” book is still in print after 40 years!
What the book offers
A comprehensive set of illustrated site-design guidelines for low-rise, higher-density family housing. Focuses on issues such as privacy, “Defensible Space”, children’s play, semi-private outdoor areas, and neighborly interaction.
Concrete, research-based tools that help turn “people-centred” intentions into specific decisions about layout, circulation, open space, parking, and shared facilities.
A highly valued reference resource for designers, planners, developers, public housing authorities, tenants’ organisations, and citizen groups who want to create housing that genuinely supports family life and community.
Why it matters today
Although first published in the 1980s, Housing As If People Mattered remains widely cited because it demonstrates how higher-density housing can be socially responsive, not just efficient. In an era of housing crises, climate pressures, and rapid urban change, its message is simple and timely: good housing, that is congruent with the needs of residents, begins with the lived experience of residents, and careful site planning can foster belonging, safety, and everyday delight for people of all ages.
Illustration from Housing as if People Mattered: “Windows and Overlooking”
The Two Authors, 1986
2014
Note: Clare Marcus died in January 2026.
To purchase this book, please go to the University of California Press website
GRIEF & CLIMATE GRIEF
Introduction: Listener at the Heart of Climate Grief
Personal grief (within Hold Fast)
Hold Fast: Navigating Personal and Climate Grief with a Reconciled Heart (2026) gathers the practices and insights that helped me live with traumatic bereavement and ongoing connection with my husband, now reframed for readers who may be experiencing many kinds of loss. The four core themes (or Stopping Places): acceptance, gratitude, forgiveness, and engagement—form the framework of the book.
Climate grief (Creeksong, Hold Fast, and Opening to Climate Grief: A Workbook Companion to Hold Fast)
Climate breakdown, eco-anxiety, and deep despair are now part of many people’s daily reality, and both of my books arise from this shared crisis. Creeksong: One Woman Sings the Climate Blue –A Memoir (2023, 2026) follows the story and emotional journey of one woman learning to live with climate grief, inviting readers into the raw, personal experience of loving damaged places and species.
Hold Fast: Navigating Personal and Climate Grief with a Reconciled Heart (forthcoming, 2026) offers more explicit practices, frameworks, and guidance for navigating both personal and climate grief, supporting readers to stay present, grounded, and engaged even as the losses mount.
Opening to Climate Grief: A Workbook Companion to Hold Fast (2026) is a letter-sized format book of 70 pages, designed to help readers work through their issues relate to climate grief in a compassionate and grounded way, using drawing, journaling, and doodling.
Resources list
TO COME
A small selection of Wendy’s essays, talks, and blog posts on personal and climate grief (not everything).
Essays and chapters
Talks and interviews
Blog posts on grief and climate breakdown and climate grief
Blog posts: Posts from the Australian Bush: Radio Jarlanbah and Radio HashBrown (Later: to be resolved!)