Suburban Nation
Subtitle: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: North Point Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780865475571
Copyright date: 2000
Subjects: Public Policy - City Planning & Urban Dev; Urbanization; Sociology - Urban; Political Science; Environmental Planning And Management; Suburban Sociology; Suburbs; Politics / Current Events; Sociology - General; Sociology; City Planning & Urban Development; Planning; Social Science / General; United States; Urban renewal; Community development, Urban
Description: There is a growing movement in North America to put an end to suburban sprawl and to replace the automobile-based settlement patterns of the past fifty years with a return to more traditional planning principles. This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day. 

Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions.
--front flap
Notes: US/CAN
Table of contents: title: Introduction ix; title: What Is Sprawl, and Why? 3; title: z The Devil Is in the Details 21; title: 3 The House That Sprawl Built 39; title: 4 The Physical Creation of Society 59; title: 5 The American Transportation Mess 85; title: 6 Sprawl and the Developer 99; title: 7 TheVictims of Sprawl 115; title: 8 The Cityand the Region i35; title: 9 'he Inner City 153; title: lo  Howto Make a Town    83; title: ii What Is to Be Done 215; title: Appendix A: The Traditional Neighborhood; title: Development Checklist 245; title: Appendix B: The Congress for the New Urbanism 253; title: Acknowledgments 263; title: Notes 267; title: Bibliography 269; title: Sources of Illustrations 277; title: Index 279