Census figures confirm that the work that has gone into making cities better is paying off.

The New Shape of Suburbia: Trends in Residential Development Adrienne Schmitz, principal author and editor Urban Land Institute, 2003, 222 pp., paperbound, $69.95. In the old days — was it five years ago? — new urbanists such as Andres Duany used to excoriate the Urban Land Institute. But things change. This new book shows the great strides ULI has made toward integrating concerns about sidewalks, street grids, public spaces, mixed uses, transit access, and other new urbanist priorities into its publications.

By Karl Haglund MIT Press in cooperation with the Charles River Conservancy, 2002, 493 pp., $45. This magnificent large-format book, weighing a hefty 4.5 pounds, tells how the edges of the Charles River, including polluted mud flats that used to waft a stench over Boston at low tide, gradually were transformed into the wondrously urbane Back Bay, the wastefully anti-urban Storrow Drive-Route 1 connection, the graceful Cambridge riverfront, and a series of other developments, many of them remarkably pleasing.