Regional Planning - Housing Building And Planning Nox 12 And 13

Regional Planning: Housing, Building and Planning Nos. 12 and 13 (1959) by C. V. Narasimhan – United Nations
ISBN: None (this was 1959, ISBNs weren’t invented yet) | Condition: Fine | From Crappy Old Books

Before PowerPoint presentations and glossy PDFs, there were hefty United Nations paperbacks—serious, sprawling tomes filled with ideas, tables, and just enough bureaucratic gravitas to make you sit up straight. Regional Planning – Housing, Building and Planning Nos. 12 and 13 (1959) is exactly that: a mid-century UN publication by C. V. Narasimhan, who took on the mighty task of explaining how to house, build, and plan for the world’s rapidly growing cities, at a time when modernism was in full swing and optimism was poured into concrete by the ton.

This particular copy is in fine condition, which is rather remarkable for a large paperback that could easily have been left to wither on a dusty office shelf or sacrificed to a coffee mug ring in a planning department somewhere. Instead, it’s here—solid, well cared for, and dignified. The spine is holding strong, the cover has weathered the decades without drama, and the whole thing looks ready to march into another committee meeting.

Inside, you’ll find the UN at its best: earnest, ambitious, and packed with charts and policy arguments. Narasimhan tackles the global challenges of housing shortages, rapid urbanisation, and the need for coherent planning strategies. It’s not exactly bedtime reading, unless your idea of a lullaby is “comparative analysis of regional development schemes,” but it is a fascinating snapshot of how international experts thought the world could be reshaped by design and determination.

Think of it as the Netflix documentary of its day—but in black and white, and with a lot more data tables. You don’t just read it; you imagine the committee rooms, the maps spread across tables, the delegates in suits puffing on cigarettes while debating the finer points of zoning.

For collectors of UN documents, urban historians, or anyone who finds beauty in the architecture of bureaucracy, this volume is a gem. For everyone else, it’s the sort of quirky relic that makes people stop and say, “Wait—you actually own a 1959 UN manual on regional planning?”

So here it is: Regional Planning – Housing, Building and Planning Nos. 12 and 13, a fine copy of a large paperback that has aged far better than most mid-century housing estates.

Crappy Old Books: finding the forgotten building blocks of history—sometimes literally.

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