The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler

Published by: Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster(trademark)Ī scathing, witty probe into the frequently warped ‘ American Dream’ which skillfully dissects the myth and myopic from the fact and founded in something of an expose or reaffirmation that begins just a bit before the beginning (of the end?). (The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape.) Permission granted by the author via email for the excerpt.

' How To Mess Up a Town,' by James Howard Kunstler, Planning Commissioners Journal, Issue 17, Winter 1995.Node still under development! First created: 01-17-2001, last edited: 12-31-2001.

James Howard Kunstler Web site: includes information about his works, life, and cultural commentary.(However, see Kunstler's book, The Long Emergency). Kunstler's argument on the unsustainability of suburbs may come to be seen as prescient, but this book was published more than eight years before the 21st century's start, and the suburbs by the century's turn had grown out to the ex-burbs, and are still growing and growing Moreover, I think suburbanites who would consider a move to the city may be put off by the idea of needing to participate in 'a web' of interrelationships with their neighbors. I find this difficult to accept (having achieved private space in an urban environment myself). Kunstler's argument seems to imply that private space is somehow anti-urban.

Kunstler ideal urban form is one in which people can live in 'a web of practical interrelationships between neighbors who understand their mutual dependency and honor it by competently caring for their work, their town, their offspring, and each other' (p. These concepts are at the heart of New Urbanism (see Suburban Nation, for example). He examines LA's (and suburban) non-sustainability.Ī big strength of this book is that Kunstler argues for human-scale urban planning and architecture to be legal (e.g., make it legal for housing above stores, lot sizes to be small, retail stores to be near housing, smaller streets to calm traffic). He criticizes the urban policies that decimated Detroit and praises the people-oriented plans of Portland, Oregon. Kunstler recounts the settlement patterns through the history of the United States and how these seem tied to American's attachment to mobility, individual freedom, private space, and ultimately suburban sprawl. This book critiques suburban and urban forms of the late 20th century and argues for human-scale architecture and urban planning. Saratoga Springs in New York's Capital District.The Geography Of Nowhere: The Rise And Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler

The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler