Library Guides: History of City Planning: Finding Books & Articles

Search Terms

Here is a selected list of Library of Congress subject headings which may be useful in your search. Check also for other useful subheadings, such as Bibliographies, History, Handbooks, etc. Guidebooks to cities may also have sections on city planning history.

For city planning research start with the U C Library Search catalog; which covers all University of California holdings and has great keyword searching.

If UC Library Search isn't enough -- particularly when your topic is geographically remote from California --use WorldCat.org, a database of more than 540 million bibliographic records in 483 languages. Request items through The Library's Interlibrary Borrowing Service.

[place name]--Description and travel
[place name]--Guidebooks
Cities and towns--[place name]--History
City planners--Biography
City planners--[place name]
City planning--[place name]
City planning--History
Garden cities --[place name]--History
Land use, Urban --[place name]--History
New towns--[place name]--History
Regional planning--[place name]--History
Transportation--[place name]--Planning--History
Urban renewal--[place name]--History
Urbanization--[place name]--History

Newspaper Indexes

In addition to the indexes listed here, some newspapers are available full text on the Web; information regarding archives of older issues is sometimes available at these sites. See the Library's home page→How to Find→Databases→ Databases: By Type→ News Articles Databases for a list of links to online full-text local and international newspapers and other news media.

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources. Offers strong regional coverage, indexing more than California newspapers such as Contra Costa Times (1995-current), Sacramento Bee (1984-current), San Francisco Chronicle (1985-current), and San Jose Mercury News (1985-current). Search categories include: California newspapers (121 titles), Greater Los Angeles (54 titles), major metropolitan titles (13 titles), Spanish-language news sources (48 titles), the World (almost 2000 titles), US (855 titles).
Historical Newspapers Online This link opens in a new window
Indexes newspapers covering all aspects of British life and world affairs in the 19th and 20th centuries. Contains four major historical resources: Palmer's Index to the Times which covers The Times (London, 1790-1905); The Official Index to the Times (1906-1980); The Historical Index to the New York Times (1863- 1922); and Palmer's Full Text Online (1785-1870).
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Nexis Uni allows users to set up personal accounts to personalize your research experience. Nexis Uni has replaced LexiNexis Academic. [dates vary]

Finding Articles

Use journal and newspaper indexes and databases to discover articles on your topic. Some online databases include the full text of the articles you discover or the "Get it at UC" link which may lead you to the full text elsewhere.

America: History and Life
Index of journals on the history of the US and Canada from prehistory to the present.
American Periodicals This link opens in a new window
Periodicals published between 1740 and 1940, including general interest magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and other periodicals. Among the titles include: Massachusetts Magazine, Pennsylvania Magazine, National Era, Southern Literary Messenger, Scribner's, Lippincott's, Ladies' Home Journal and McClure's.
Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Indexes journal articles, essays, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology as well as ethnology, archaeology, folklore, and material culture. This database combines the resources of Anthropological Index and Anthropological Literature.
Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Indexing, abstracts, and (in many cases) the full text of articles for the most important scholarly business journals as well as popular and trade magazines and newsletters.
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index This link opens in a new window
C19 Index draws on the Nineteenth Century Short Title Catalogue, The Wellesley Index, Poole's Index and Periodicals Index Online to create integrated bibliographic coverage of over 1.4 million books and official publications, 64,891 archival collections and 15.6 million articles published in over 2,500 journals, magazines and newspapers.
Civil Engineering Database (CEDB) This link opens in a new window
Book records date back to the early 1900s.
Historical Abstracts
Excludes US and Canada. Covers from 1450 to the present.
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine This link opens in a new window
Indexes books, journals, proceedings, and dissertations worldwide about research in the history of science, medicine, technology, and related fields. Subjects covered include agriculture, biology, construction, chemistry, energy, engineering, geology, linguistics, mathematics, medicine, music, philosophy, physics, social sciences, town planning, transport engineering, and zoology.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
For more sophisticated search capabilities, go directly to JSTOR advanced search.
PAIS International This link opens in a new window
Includes publications from over 120 countries. Some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Archive covers English-language material only.
Periodicals Index Online (formerly PCI) This link opens in a new window
Indexes millions of articles published in over 4,700 periodicals in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. A sister database, Periodicals Archive Online, provides a full-text archive of over 700 journals published between 1802 and 2005.

RIBA British Architectural Library online catalogue
Online catalog of the British Architectural Library. (API Online - Architectural Publications Index) [1984 - present]

TRID Database This link opens in a new window
TRID combines the records from TRB's Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) Database and the OECD's Joint Transport Research Centre's International Transport Research Documentation (ITRD) Database.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index (1975-present), Science Citation Index Expanded (1900-present), Social Sciences Citation Index (1900-present), Conference Proceedings Citation Index (1990-present), Book Citation Index (2005-present), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present).

Selected Journals for Planning History

Here's a selection of historical and current journals containing articles relevant to city planning or urban history.

Cities: the international journal of urban policy and planning.
Garden cities & town planning.Official journal of the Garden Cities and Town Planning Association .
JAPA: journal of the American Planning Association
Journal of planning education and research. Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.
Journal of urban history.
Journal of urban planning and development
Planning history.
Planning history studies. Society for American City and Regional Planning History. Richmond, VA: The Society. 1996-1998.
Planning perspectives
Storia della citta. Milano: Electa Editrice. v. 1(1976)-56(1990) Nicely illustrated with plans, maps, etc.
Urban affairs review
Urban history

Secondary menu

History of City Planning: Finding Books & Articles

Search Terms

Newspaper Indexes

Finding Articles

Selected Journals for Planning History