Charles Davis reviews. America's zoning laws, intended to control the baneful effects of industry, have mutated, in the view of one architecture critic, into a system that corrodes civic life, outlaws the human scale, defeats tradition and authenticity, and confounds our yearning for an everyday environment worthy of our affection. On the seventieth anniversary of Jones Beach, the legacy of Robert Moses is as controversial as ever. Atlantic articles by Moses from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s offer a glimpse into the mind of this father of the postmodern American landscape. Witold Rybczynski, the author of A Clearing in the Distance, talks about Frederick Law Olmsted, the importance of Central Park, and the shape of our urban and suburban landscapes.
American suburbia can look sterile and uniform is uncontroversial.
They are segregated pods devoted to shopping, working, or sleeping, all of them dead half the day. By planning for commons, narrow streets, storefronts on the sidewalk, and a mix of apartments, mansions, playgrounds, and retail stores, Duany and Plater-Zyberk try to create old fashioned neighborhoods. It is revolutionary for reasons that are as much political as architectural. This book attacks sprawl, not suburbia. The two are not synonyms.