Book Description
Despite a modest revival in city living, Americans are spreading out more than ever -- into "exurbs" and "boomburbs" miles from anywhere, in big houses in big subdivisions. We cling to the notion of safer neighborhoods and better schools, but what we get, argues Anthony Flint, is long commutes, crushing gas prices and higher taxes -- and a landscape of strip malls and office parks badly in need of a makeover.
This Land tells the untold story of development in America -- how the landscape is shaped by a furious clash of political, economic and cultural forces. It is the story of burgeoning anti-sprawl movement, a 1960s-style revolution of New Urbanism, smart growth, and green building. And it is the story of landowners fighting back on the basis of property rights, with free-market libertarians, homebuilders, road pavers, financial institutions, and even the lawn-care industry right alongside them.
The subdivisions and extra-wide roadways are encroaching into the wetlands of Florida, ranchlands in Texas, and the desert outside Phoenix and Las Vegas. But with up to 120 million more people in the country by 2050, will the spread-out pattern cave in on itself? Could Americans embrace a new approach to development if it made sense for them?
A veteran journalist who covered planning, development, and housing for the Boston Globe for sixteen years and a visiting scholar in 2005 at the Harvard Design School, Flint reveals some surprising truths about the future and how we live in This Land.
Customer Reviews:
Flint wants citizens & planners to plan for 60-72 million immigrants. Flint says you're an extremist/radical if you oppose.......2007-01-25
I'm against sprawl. But I and the majority of U.S. citizens can't and should NOT accept Flint's outrageous portrayal (see pp 125-6) of those citizens who have examined and are deeply concerned with U.S. population projections for the next 50 years--120 million more, with a staggering 60% of those immigrant--as on the 'radical fringe' and as 'tree-huggers who agree with Pat Buchanan and Michael Savage.' This is idiotic McCarthy-like baiting at its finest. And dullest.
Flint appears to be clueless as to what democratic planning consists of. Perhaps he needs to research what U.S. citizens think 'building smart' for 72 million immigrants truly means. There SHOULD be a democratic debate about immigration and planning, and the sooner more Americans--and planners-- enter it, the better. But not for this author. Flint's biographical essay contains not a single reference to the impacts of illegal immigration (an estimated 12 million people)on municipal, regional and environmental planning practice. Is this acceptable to the majority of Americans? To planners? Instead we find Flint capitulating with this ridiculous reminder on how to 'deal' with the incoming masses (p 248):
"Remember those 100 million new people expected in the country by 2050? They're the reason we're going to need more compact places."
Just like that.
My other critique of this book (released in 2006) is the absence of ANY real discussion of the impacts of global warming on urban and regional development, planned or unplanned, smart or stupid. Flint covers planning issues for homeland security instead. But with popular coverage of planetary warming now a daily norm on the TV and in the media, you'd think writers steeped in planning issues would make the connection. Flint misses the boat in a rising sea...again. A LSU geoscience professor informs us on national news last night that coastal regions will be facing some serious threats in 40 years from melting ice caps. This book mentions nothing on the challenges of global warming for the planning profession, or for readers who happen to occupy the populated coastal areas of the country who'll see their populations soar from both legal and illegal population growth. Not to mention planning impacts of drought, flooding, urban heat islands, energy supplies for cities gong through hyper-growth, etc. Without population and global warming considerations (addressed in POPULATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE (2005) by O'Neill, and also see "Human Mobility in a Globalizing World: Urban Development Trends and Policy Implications" by Wm Clark and available online at the CA Center for Population Research), how smart can Flint's brand of American 'smart growth' really be?
I have grave doubts that the biologist E. O. Wilson, who has watched the planet get chewed to hell in his lifetime, would've given this book such high praises had he actually READ the book.
Addendum:
For a thoughtless and perhaps unethical critique of my book review by a Boston planner (academic?), click on 'Comments (2)' below. In summary and with my embellishments, this Flint supporter appears to be implying
1) The illegal immigration issue has nothing significant to do with land use planning (again: 60-72 million plus according to Flint added to the US population, and certainly the greater proportion arriving in violation of Federal immigration law). Focus uncritically on planning for the millions who are here legally and can afford to own planned developments. Aging baby boomers will need "young" people (who cares about their status) to do the menial work and pay into SS. The non-unionized undocumented will help build and maintain the compact habitats only aging boomers can afford. Like the sprawl they are constructing right now. How else will we keep some of our lawless and immoral regional economies humming w/out lots of young, undocumented, eager, and poverty stricken individuals? Who cares if this intensifies America's two-tier society?
2) You're xenophobic if you call attention to this demographic and planning challenge for the projected 60-72 million immigrants (note: her finger-pointing mirrors perfectly Flint's accusations of 'radicalism' mentioned in my book review. If you're not for unlimited population increase you're 'on the fringe'). Planners should not be concerned with what the majority of American citizens have to say about future land use in their own country.
3)Any voiced concerns with current failures of urban and regional planners to address the planning impacts of 12 million undocumented (in less than 12 years) or consider future planning demands for 60-72 million individuals are irrelevant; it's not what land use planners do. Remember: you're a xenophobe like millions of other Americans for even thinking that. Planners don't think this way. Just focus and push for legislation and regs that result in 'smart growth'.
4) Global warming is for env. science books, not land use planners who already know that stuff. Drought, urban runoff, regional flooding, building for a warmer climate, urban heat islands, energy and watershed water supplies for cities and regions, and the rise of sea level in urbanized coastal regions have NOTHING to do with American land use.
5) Flint's de facto and uncritical support for 60-72 million more individuals of unknown status entering this country in the next 50 years is not the point of the book. Good planning is simply a social challenge. We need enlightened planning laws. So to hell with immigration laws.
6)Repeat daily the 'smart growth' mantra.
Flint provides a lucid account of the complex battle over sprawl in America.......2006-09-09
'This Land' by Anthony Flint is written by a journalist in a journalistic style. The core of this book is devoted to the battle of ideologies over land use in America: the smart growth movement advocating for control on suburban growth, the new urbanists insisting on the need to rethink our zoning laws currently favoring inefficient sprawl, and property right advocates and lobbyists fighting to gain full control over what can be developed on their property. This story spanning over essentially half a century is told using a myriad of anecdotes and examples from all across America. One such story relates how land owners request compensations for lost revenues (equated to governmental takings) resulting from the restrictions on development outside urban growth boundaries. Flint remains critical and objective, avoiding an overt endorsement of anyone in particular. Many of the themes discussed in books such as `Suburban Nation' or `The Geography of Nowhere' are covered, but with a journalistic tone and restraint.
Beyond merely covering the familiar arguments, he suggests, somewhat surprisingly, that smart growth is itself a `conservative idea'. Our current growth practices are not truly a reflection of the free market; they are highly subsidized by way of highway investments and the costly expansion of public services by local governments (e.g. roads, sewers, schools, fire and police departments). Instead of building on brown sites and urban infills, cities expand on greenfields further and further away stretching tax dollars up to a point of imminent bankruptcy.
This book's strength is in providing a non-partisan account of the political and economical battles over land use in America. Its weakness may be an overabundance of short anecdotal stories found in the middle part of the book. Some suggestions are made in the very last chapter as to what can be done to improve our public space and reduce the wastefulness of our current growth practices. Those seeking a severe and incisive criticism of modern urbanism may be better served by reading `Suburban Nation'. However, this book presents the multitude of conflicting positions that other authors are essentially arguing for or against.
Very balanced and insightful.......2006-09-07
I find Anthony Flint very balanced and insightful in this book. I like the fact that this book's author, in addition to explaining how and why sprawl came about in the first place, the drawbacks of sprawl, and the solutions to it, also explains the reasons why there is so much resistance to the alternatives to sprawl, and the solutions to that resistance.
America the Beautiful.......2006-08-22
Anthony Flint does a great job of enlightening us about the history of sprawl in America and how we got to where we are today. It sure surprised me. He also offers solutions to the problems of sprawl, so the book provides hope. This Land is well written and easy to understand.
A wide-ranging survey of defenders and contenders of sprawl.......2006-08-20
THIS LAND: THE BATTLE OVER SPRAWL AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICA charts the evolution of development in America: a process which holds political, social and economic clashes and influences throughout the process. From the roots of the anti-sprawl movement in the 1960s to issues of property and personal rights, developer rights, finances and more, THIS LAND comes from a journalist who covered planning and housing for the Boston Globe for sixteen years. His background lends to a wide-ranging survey of defenders and contenders of sprawl.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Book Description
Capitalize on the lucrative market for suburban residential development. This new book describes how consumer demands are changing, strategies for overcoming NIMBYism, and the latest trends related to open space, infill and mixed housing development, increasing density, transportation, and street design. Seasoned developers provide insight into what works--and the traps to avoid--in developing single- and multifamily properties ranging in size from 22 units to large planned communities, both conventional and new urbanist, in price ranges from affordable to luxury. Eleven case studies of projects in the United States and abroad illustrate how others are incorporating these trends into innovative and financially successful developments.
Average customer rating:
- Potent ammo against unchecked growth
- Will We Become a Nation of Renters?
- Sprawl on our wallets
|
Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of Unchecked Development
Robert Burchell ,
Anthony Downs ,
Sahan Mukherji , and
Barbara McCann
Manufacturer: Island Press
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ASIN: 1559635304 |
Book Description
The environmental impacts of sprawling development have been well documented, but few comprehensive studies have examined its economic costs. In 1996, a team of experts undertook a multi-year study designed to provide quantitative measures of the costs and benefits of different forms of growth. Sprawl Costs presents a concise and readable summary of the results of that study.
The authors analyze the extent of sprawl, define an alternative, more compact form of growth, project the magnitude and location of future growth, and compare what the total costs of those two forms of growth would be if each was applied throughout the nation. They analyze the likely effects of continued sprawl, consider policy options, and discuss examples of how more compact growth would compare with sprawl in particular regions. Finally, they evaluate whether compact growth is likely to produce the benefits claimed by its advocates.
The book represents a comprehensive and objective analysis of the costs and benefits of different approaches to growth, and gives decision-makers and others concerned with planning and land use realistic and useful data on the implications of various options and policies.
Customer Reviews:
Potent ammo against unchecked growth.......2006-04-23
As a rural resident trying to help my town control predatory developers and manage issues of growth and land use, this book is a potent tool, a fact that is clearly disturbing to some who stand to profit handsomely from sprawl, like the automobile and oil companies, the large-scale construction industries, millionaire developers, automobile manufacturers, and big-box national retailers.
It's interesting that Diane Bast has written a negative review without mentioning, either here or in her Amazon.com profile, that she holds the title of Vice President of Internal Affairs for the benign-sounding (and Richard Mellon Schiafe-funded) "Heartland Institute," whose work she cites here.
She also fails to mention that her husband Joseph L. Bast is also founder, president and CEO of the Institute, whose board of directors includes representatives from General Motors, Exxon-Mobil, and Philip Morris, along with various banks and insurance companies. The Institute has also over the years received substantial funding from the tobacco industry, among other large multinational companies. Of course, none of these board members mention these affiliations on Heartland's flowers-and-little-kids adorned official website, because that would be giving the real purpose of the organization away.
I doubt that such an organization would subsidize any research which would support public transportation or de-emphasize converting far-flung farmland or open space into cookie-cutter subdivisions, so Ms. Bast's citations are unsurprising given her unmentioned affiliation to that organization.
As for Mr. Cox, a quick check of his consultancy website reveals his purpose is to denigrate comprehensive planning efforts (because they supposedly put constraints on private ownership and the so-called "free market") and to promote gasoline-powered transportation over rail, public transportation and other environmentally- friendly alternatives. (In the 1920s and 30s, a consortium of carmakers and tire manufacturers bought up and dismantled existing electric trolley systems in major cities, and Mr. Cox and his colleagues are apparently dedicated to making sure that such systems stay dead.)
In fact, despite Ms. Bast's derision of "politics" as a factor in the costs of sprawl, the Heartland Institute has been more than willing to use politics to its own corporate ends, including coordinating the blast-faxing of legislators to oppose or overturn anti-smoking, pro-environmental and health-care regulatory legislation that could cut into the profits of its benefactor companies. Despite her sprinkling her review with references to the poor and minorities, her organization believes in unfettered corporate power, first and foremost. I believe the reader should take that into account when reading her comments.
The fact remains that sprawl enriches developers, car manufacturers, oil and real estate companies much, much more than individual homeowners, who find that as gas hits $3 - $4 a gallon and above, and their property taxes jump as overburdened small towns try to cope with the sudden need to build new schools and keep formerly little-used town roads in repair, that their "affordable" homes cost them more to own than they imagined -- and that the only part of the supposed wealth they generate is when they sell them, long after the strip-mall, big-box and cookie-cutter developers have pocketed their profits and gone elsewhere.
There is a biological analog to unfettered and out of control growth. It's called "cancer." Cancer eventually kills its host. Sprawl kills community life and saps a region's vitality. This book lays out the evidence in black and white.
For more information on the Heartland Institute, go to www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute.
Will We Become a Nation of Renters?.......2005-12-13
According to an article by Wendell Cox, senior fellow for The Heartland Institute, this book rehashes the tired claims about suburbanization (pejoratively called "urban sprawl") being unnecessarily costly. In fact, however, Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of Unchecked Development (by Robert Burchell, Anthony Downs, Barbara McCann, and Sahan Mukheri) relies on prospective data that is soundly refuted by reality.
The book is an outgrowth of a study led by Burchell, which concluded that more compact (less suburban) development could save $225,000,000,000 in government spending over 25 years. The study made the all-too-common error of concluding that many zeros after a number make it significant. They do not. It will probably take the average reader at least 225,000,000,000 nanoseconds to read this article. $225 billion over 25 years is less than $30 per capita each year. This is a pittance in comparison with overall government expenditures, which have risen more than 100 times that fast over the past 25 years after adjustment for inflation.
Aside from the shock value, the validity of the numbers is questionable. In fact, the suburbs are not more expensive. Joshua Utt and I published research analyzing Bureau of the Census data for more than 700 municipalities concluding that actual (not theoretical) per-capita public expenditures are lowest in the newer suburbs. Even sewer costs were found to be lowest in the newer suburbs. The principal reasons are that politics, congestion, and labor costs drive costs higher in more compact development.
Sprawl Costs' weakest assertion may be that more compact development would reduce the cost of an average new house $16,000, a conjecture that ignores economic reality. To accomplish the more compact development Burchell et al. would prefer requires stringent regulation, such as urban growth boundaries, greenbelts, and other limits on development. Rationing land, like anything else, results in higher prices. Edward Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko, in work published by Harvard University, reported that the principal cause of differences in housing affordability among U.S. metropolitan areas is zoning and land regulation.
The current "housing bubble" is most pronounced where there is strong land rationing-places like California, Portland, and the Northeast, from Boston to Washington's Virginia and Maryland suburbs. In the past five years actual house prices in those areas have risen $200,000 more than the average in Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Houston, growth dynamos where there is little land rationing. In just five years, the conjectural $16,000 savings over 25 years have been consumed 12 times over by the actual excess price increases in areas that have implemented the very strategies required to compel the compact development advocated by Burchell et al.
Moreover, with minority home ownership in the U.S. a full third below the Non-Hispanic White homeownership rate, the cost-increasing effects of land rationing are today denying opportunity and blocking the ladder to the economic mainstream. Of course, the higher prices will also drive other millions out of the homeownership market.
All of this shifts wealth from young to old and poorer to richer in a perverse trickle-up economy. The American Dream is under threat. A nation of renters will be less affluent.
None of this is to suggest that suburbanization should be the favored form of urban development. Instead, people should be allowed to live and work where and how they like. Anti-suburban interests have yet to find a compelling reason why this should not be so.
Sprawl Costs misses the economic opportunities and wealth that have been created by broad home ownership, made possible by building new houses on inexpensive land in the suburbs. It is not surprising that virtually all urban growth in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand has been suburban for decades. Consumers know better. What Burchell et al. perceive as costs are really benefits.
Wendell Cox (cox@heartland.org) is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute and a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.
Sprawl on our wallets.......2005-11-16
I just heard one of the authors on talk radio out here and must say that I was blown away by the amount of money sprawl costs every year. Just making a list of the items that tap into our tax dollars is staggering: schools, highways, sewers, electricity, water. And if you watch a new housing development going into the desert, this fact is so obvious---much of the bill must be paid by all the rest of us, how else could they afford all those big costs. So I know the argument for sprawl is that if we didn't have it, housing prices would go through the roof. But one sensible point this author made is that with a very limited change in the way we live, would result in a massive savings to our government spending. So I hope people will listen to this message cause it seems to make sense to me. Looking forward to reading the book, and I hope government officials will as well.
Book Description
Cities without Suburbs, first published in 1993, has become an influential analysis of America's cities among city planners, scholars, and citizens alike. In it, David Rusk, the former mayor of Albuquerque, argues that America must end the isolation of the central city from its suburbs in order to attack its urban problems.
Rusk's analysis, extending back to 1950, covers 522 central cities in 320 metro areas of the United States. He finds that cities trapped within old boundaries have suffered severe racial segregation and the emergence of an urban underclass. But cities with annexation powers -- -- termed "elastic" by Rusk -- -- have shared in area-wide development.
This third edition is among the first books of any kind to employ information from the 2000 U.S. census. While refining his argument with this new data, Rusk assesses the major trends of the 1990s, including the perceived rebound of central cities, the impact of Hispanic and Asian migration, the growing similarities of older "inner-ring" suburbs to central cities, and the emerging influence of faith-based movements. New recommendations take account of growing restrictions on cities' annexation powers, even in the Southwestern United States, and of new opportunities for federal shaping of home mortgage programs and urban planning processes. Rusk's conclusion stresses cities' growing experience with building political coalitions in pursuit of development and growth.
Customer Reviews:
as good as the first "Cities Without Suburbs".......2004-05-17
but better, because he includes 2000 Census data. The Census data bolsters his basic conclusion (that cities prosper if they can annex newly developing areas, but fail otherwise), and contains a variety of other interesting facts. For example, the data assembled by Rusk shows that there is some evidence of gentrification, as shown by the fact that some cities have narrowed the economic gap between city and suburb. On the other hand, such gentrification has typically been quite limited; for example, in Chicago, one of America's most improved cities, per capita city income increased from 66% of suburban income in 1990 to a still-anemic 71% of suburban income in 2000.
Rusk assembles piles of data to show how "elastic" cities (cities that can annex suburbs) differ from "inelastic" cities- typically the former grow instead of declining, are less segregated, and have better bond ratings.
Product Description
A glance at a list of America's fastest growing "cities" reveals quite a surprise: most are really overgrown suburbs. Places such as Anaheim, California, Coral Springs, Florida, Naperville, Illinois, North Las Vegas, Nevada, and Plano, Texas, have swelled to big-city size with few people really noticing--including many of their ten million residents. These "boomburbs" are large, rapidly growing, incorporated communities of more than 100,000 residents that are not the biggest city in their region. Here, Robert E. Lang and Jennifer B. LeFurgy explain who lives in them, what they look like, how they are governed, and why their rise calls into question the definition of urban.
Located in over twenty-five major metro areas throughout the United States, numerous boomburbs have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in size between census reports. Some are now more populated than traditional big cities. The population of the biggest boomburb-Mesa, Arizona-recently surpassed that of Minneapolis and Miami.
Typically large and sprawling, boomburbs are "accidental cities," but not because they lack planning. Many are made up of master-planned communities that have grown into one another. Few anticipated becoming big cities and unintentionally arrived at their status. Although boomburbs possess elements found in cities such as housing, retailing, offices, and entertainment, they lack large downtowns. But they can contain high-profile industries and entertainment venues: the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Arizona Cardinals are among over a dozen major-league sports teams who play in the boomburbs.
Urban in fact but not in feel, these drive-by cities of highways, office parks, and shopping malls are much more horizontally built and less pedestrian friendly than most older suburbs. And, contrary to common perceptions of suburbia, they are not rich and elitist. Poverty is often seen in boomburb communities of small single-family homes, neighborhoods
Customer Reviews:
Sound Study.......2007-09-26
Boomburbs provides an excellent overview of the rapid growth and complexity of large suburbs in America's major metropolitan areas. Lang's study provides clear evidence that these large suburbs vary significantly in their social, economic and physical form. Further, Lang notes that the future of these and emerging boomburbs will profoundly affect the future of metropolitan areas.
Book Description
Cities without Suburbs, first published in 1993, has become an influential analysis of America's cities among city planners, scholars, and citizens alike. In it, David Rusk, the former mayor of Albuquerque, argues that America must end the isolation of the central city from its suburbs in order to attack its urban problems.
The second edition not only employs updated census data available since publication of the first edition, but it provides more precise information about population, income, and racial trends in central cities. Updated case studies of metropolitan reforms are based on Rusk's direct involvement as a consultant in over fifty metro areas since the publication of the first edition.
Customer Reviews:
Good conclusions despite bad methods of arriving at them.......2002-07-10
Rusk comes to some good conclusions, such as the necessity of reducing needless tiers of government, the need to consolidate city/county/regional management, and so on, but he arrives at some of these conclusions using flawed logic.
He invests a lot of time and space in the book to go over the theory of "city elasticity", by which he means the city's ability to expand its boundaries by annexing unincorporated areas or smaller municipalities. Instead of citing the work of others who use this theory, he instead has decided to omit a necessary component for supporting or debunking the theory -- a bibliography.
In effect, the city elasticity theory can be in most cases nothing more than the "Polish blanket trick" -- sawing off part of a city and sewing it onto another. Gobbling up ineffectively designed or managed municipalities is a net loss for a city, yet this is not reflected adequately in his findings. Worse, he fails to come to terms with the inequities of city/suburban design, instead taking the moral low road by accepting the inevitability of suburban design. In addition, he fails to arrive at any useful conclusions about how to solve the problems of urban blight except through the city elasticity theory and engages in a sort of governmental political correctness by failing to address root causes.
Ray Suarez's book "The Old Neighborhood" addresses many of the root causes of urban blight better than Rusk's work, while "Suburban Nation" by DPZ and Speck covers many of the flaws related to the inefficiency of suburban design. Finally, Jane Jacobs' "The Economy of Cities" does much to debunk some of the assumptions made in the city elasticity theory, based on economic models and history. There are other works to be cited to support or refute the basic thesis, essentially making this shortcoming inexcusable.
Despite the flaws, including how some of the effects of the data points are in fact mere echoes of the causes, he comes up with a coherent set of points about reasserting the role of government in an environment that accepts sprawl growth as an inevitable path. It's just that the lack of a sizeable bibliography and the waving of hands over certain topics detracts greatly from the inevitable right answers.
"Cities Without Suburbs" promises to create cities from suburbs, simply by pulling them into the city's framework. It's at best a last-resort solution for a situation where you're unwilling to admit you've lost control of events. It doesn't hold much promise for being useful in cases where the essential city fabric is more or less solid.
Must-read for city policy-makers and social activists.......1999-05-30
David Rusk, former mayor of Albuquerque, NM, puts his experience and research to work in this compelling report. In it, he connects the economic and practical success of America's urban centers with the degree of socioeconomic and racial segregation present in each. The result is a blueprint that local, state and federal officials can use to reverse the troubling trends in our cities. Specifically, he calls for metro-wide planning councils, city-county consolidation, aggressive annexation by older central cities, and changes to state and federal laws to create unified cities without suburbs. The text also includes numerous interesting case studies that demonstrate what, when practiced, his ideas are capable of. Easy-to-read, fascinating, and enlightening. David Rusk is talking. Are America's city officials listening?
Customer Reviews:
I love this book!.......1999-05-10
I read this book for my book report, and I got an A! It is so gripping, has so much action and suspense, I just couldn't put it down! I have never read such a book as good as this besides "Puff: The Magic Dragon" and "Nightmare on Wall Street" All I can say is just WOW! I am amazed how this book isn't popular enough...I am trying to get all my friends to read it.
A must read on socio-economic trends and real estate values.......1998-11-30
A few other authors have touched on the trend in migration to what others call "micropolitan" area or "exurbs" but no one has done so with as broad and compelling a brush as Professor Lessinger. He goes back to the founding of this country and describes the five major "mind shifts" that we have lived through, and how each enabled and were enabled by key technologies, and how each produced major migration of populations. As he points out in this incredibly thoroughly researched book, these migrations have been far more significant than the westward or sunbelt migrations, and far more actionable for those hoping to capitalize on changing values for residential or commercial real estate. While some of his predictions don't seem to have panned out the thought process and evidence are great. It's a shame the book is out of print. I'm eager to see what Lessinger does when the 2000 census is out.
Book Description
One of the great debates of our time concerns the predominant form of land use in America today - the all too familiar pattern of commercial and residential development known as sprawl. But what do we really know about sprawl? Do we know what it is? Where did it come from? Is it really so bad? If so, what are the alternatives? Can anything be done to make it better? The Limitless City offers an accessible examination of those and related questions. Oliver Gillham, an architect and planner with more than twenty-five years of experience in the field, considers the history and development of sprawl and examines current debates about the issue. The book:
- offers a comprehensive definition of sprawl in America
- traces the roots of sprawl and considers the factors that led to its preeminence as an urban and suburban form
- reviews both its negative impacts (loss of open space, increased pollution, gridlock) as well as its positive aspects (economic development, personal freedom, privacy)
- considers responses to sprawl including "smart growth," urban growth boundaries, regional planning, and the New Urbanism
- looks at what can be done to improve and counterbalance sprawl
The author argues that whether we like it or not, sprawl is here to stay, and only by understanding where it came from and why it developed will we be able to successfully address the problems it has created and is likely to create in the future. The Limitless City is the first book to provide a realistic look at sprawl, with a frank recognition of its status as the predominant urban form in America, now and into the near future. Rather than railing against it, Gillham charts its probable future course while describing critical efforts that can be undertaken to improve the future of sprawl and our existing urban core areas.
Customer Reviews:
somewhat balanced, unlike most books on the subject.......2004-01-16
The best and most unusual thing about this book is that it is more balanced than most: while most sprawl-related books are pure attacks or defenses (or are too superficial to adequately cover either side of the argument), Gillham gives a significant amount of space to the arguments, counter-arguments and counter-counter arguments on both sides (though on balance he is definitely more antisprawl than not). In addition, the book covers a wider range of issues than many sprawl related books; instead of being focused on quality of life issues (like most New Urbanist books are) or on environmental issues, Gillham goes into both. Also, Gillham discusses the political lineups on sprawl related issues: who's for changing the status quo, who defends sprawl and why.
The Limitless City.......2002-04-30
This book delivers a thorough, unbiased and thoughtful approach to the problem of sprawl. The issues are clearly defined and the myths debunked when necessary. After reading this book, one feels that the problems and potential solutions can be grasped. The writing is clear,and concise and draws the reader through the complexities of the issues.
Book Description
Here, Owen Gutfreund offers a fascinating look at how highways have dramatically transformed American communities nationwide, aiding growth and development in unsettled areas and undermining existing urban centers. Gutfreund uses a "follow the money" approach, showing how government policies subsidized suburban development and fueled a chronic nationwide dependence on cars and roadbuilding, with little regard for expense, efficiency, ecological damage, or social equity. The consequence was a combination of unstoppable suburban sprawl, along with ballooning municipal debt burdens, deteriorating center cities, and profound changes in American society and culture. Gutfreund tells the story via case studies of three communities--Denver, Colorado; Middlebury, Vermont; and Smyrna, Tennessee. Different as these places are, they all show the ways that government-sponsored highway development radically transformed America's cities and towns. Based on original research and vividly written, Twentieth-Century Sprawl brings to light the benefits and consequences of the spread of American highways and makes a major contribution to our understanding of issues that still plague our cities and suburbs today.
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Economics of Cities and Suburbs, The
William Thomas Bogart
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0135699711 |
Book Description
Designed to convey the excitement of studying cities while developing a set of formal tools for analyzing their economies.
KEY TOPICS: The book attempts to remove the division between “urban” economics and “regional” economics by demonstrating that the traditional intermetropolitan models of specialization and trade can also be extended to intrametropolitan analysis, thus unifying their treatment.
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