Happy holidays, readers! 2013 is drawing to a close, and while many of us are celebrating Christmas today, or maybe just enjoying a day off of work – our team wanted to take a moment to wish you a warm holiday season. We hope that, wherever you’re reading from, family, friends, and loved ones are close by.

Since we can’t deliver each of you a physical gift for being loyal readers, we thought we’d do the next best thing. Here are our picks of some great listening and reading from across the global transport and urban planning community for your downtime this week. Enjoy!

Urbanism Speakeasy: Making places better for people

Urbanism Speakeasy is a podcast with a companion blog hosted by Andy Boenau on the Sustainable Cities Collective, where we often share content from TheCityFix. The podcast focuses on human-scale design and shares technical information and trends in ordinary language.

The most recent episode of Urbanism Speakeasy featured Jillian Glover, the voice behind This City Life – a blog primarily focused on Vancouver, Canada that shares thoughts and observations on what makes cities great places to live. Glover’s episode, “Livability Through the Eyes of a City Dweller,” discusses how we can move from suburban isolation to urban connectivity. It’s worth a listen!

The 100 “best” books on city-making ever written

For the truly ambitious reader, Brent Toderian recently published a list of the top 100 books on urbanism at Planetizen, including many that are readable and entertaining for non-urban planning professionals. If you need to find a few belated Christmas presents or are looking for a new read yourself to ring in the new year, check it out.

“Undriver” licenses build enthusiasm for non-motorized transport

You’ve heard about driver’s licenses, but what about “undriver” licenses? Undriving, a Seattle, Washington based nonprofit, has been issuing “undriver” licenses since 2007 to individuals who pledge to reduce their car use in the coming month. Do I hear a sustainable mobility New Year’s resolution in the works? To find out more, check out Carbusters’ recent article about the Undriver movement.

There’s a wealth of awesome sustainable transport and urban planning blogs and websites out there, and our team will definitely be using holiday relaxation hours to catch up on the latest trends.

Do you know of a great source we’re missing? Let us know in the comment section!