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Summary: A Wonderful and Important Book
Review: I think the reader from Salt Lake City has a lot to learn about architecture-- for starters, how to spell it correctly. Perhaps he or she should continue to save money and spend a little more time in the library.
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Summary: Suburban Nation
Review: I found this book rather lacking and the title very misleading. Origionally I was interested in this book because I like the idea of an America where transportation is less depended upon. Although the authors had some convincing arguments for topics such as: wider roadways that lead to less cautious drivers and more traffic accidents, sidewalks that are not "pedestrian" friendly and lower resale values of land near highways and freeways; they were limited in their ideas for a more pedestrian friendly America. In my opinion, the last "straw" was when the authors compared an architechurally interesting single-family home and a plain farmhouse. They claimed that the home with architechure to it wasn't as pleasing to the eye. I think the authors need to look into some other ways of creating communities before they try and write a book. I am glad I didn't purchase this book but instead borrowed it from the library. It would have been a waste of my money.
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Summary: Vision of Community
Review: In addition to explaining why sprawl is not ideal, the book also portrayed a detailed vision of what working communities would look like. My husband and I will soon be looking for a place to live and raise children; this book will definately help us evaluate existing communities and homes. For example, destinations within walking distance of the home can encourage autonomy in children, and lessen the pressure on the chauffeuring parents.
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Summary: We Are All Responsible - So Let's All Look For Solutions
Review: Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck are urban planners who have seen and done much of what America is made up of today. Here is an an overview of the origins and current status of the epidemic of Suburban sprawl, and it's heavily documented and scientifically researched consequences. Some of the concepts discussed include zoning laws, regulations, lost tax revenue, lack of aesthetics, and anonymous "soul-less" suburbs filled with alienated people. Obviously, people have to live somewhere. They have to buy groceries and shop, send their children to schools, and live in a neighborhood that's desirable. Are separate residential and commercial zoning laws the only way? Are large sub-divisions of residential track-housing, the only option? These plans usually necessitate a car for doing anything and everything, no matter how trivial. In metropolitan areas with high population densities, we need to get in our cars, drive through congested traffic to eyesoric strip-malls, even to buy a loaf of bread. There is no sense of collective community, even in a mental sense. Office parks are separated, yet connected by hiways, into islands of emptiness. There are also negative economic consequences. It has been been proven from varieties of sources, that the current suburban model not only strains but debilitates the economy. There is a heavy-toll placed on the residents of these widespread areas. How many times have you heard people say "the traffic is terrible," while they are driving their vehicles everyday to do virtually everything? Have you ever heard, "where do all these people come from?" or "I wonder where they're all going?" Answer: they're doing exactly the same thing you're doing: driving through suburbia, everyday, for everything, and anything. As the population continues to increase in the United States we'll see unprecedented massive growth of suburban sprawl under the current plan of the suburban model. It's not revamping the model entirely that may make living under these circumstances more livable, but some minor well-thought adjustments....
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Summary: The lifeboat for our drowning cities!
Review: Whether you're an experienced urban architect or someone who's just plain fed up with sitting in traffic for 2 hours a day, Suburban Nation is a thought-provoking text that aims to define, analyze, and ultimately provide solutions for the multitude of problems that plague our modern cities. The methodical way in which the authors break down urban problems into the most basic, easy to understand level is unprecedented and absolutely brilliant. Though I am on the road to becoming an architect and am thusly familiar with design lingo, I am 100% confident that any socially conscious individual would find this book vastly enlightening. I certainly developed a whole new perspective on city living from this reading, and I would recommend it to anyone who is concerned about the future of human civilization and the environment that contains it.
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Summary: Prescient Prose
Review: Duany and Co. take their pens and chronicle development in America today -- which, in most places, is poorly designed, fraught with politics, and just not thought about very often. This book is about how we live. This book is very prescient and telling in its analysis of this country and our sometimes reckless development of land. Many people may not think about many of the topics in this book because they are so obvious -- e.g., why do sidewalks in suburbia end or not exist at all? Why are sidewalks underused? Why are we SO reliant on automobiles? WHEN you read this book and if you live in suburbia like I do in Northern Virginia, you'll instantly be able to recognize many examples of poorly planned development in your communities, what are the consequences, and how urban planning and sprawl play a significant role (barrier) in developing a robust society. There's only so much land in America that we can develop, so what happens 50 years from now? What will America look like? This book calls us to action to think about the lives we are living and explains cogently and precisely the ramifications of not only our planning decisions today, but those made years and decades ago.
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Summary: Reasonable look at better places to live
Review: Having read the screeding rants of James Kunstler, I was expecting something more vitriolic and less reasonable. Duany and his colleagues don't condemn the suburbs, per se, but present a well-reasoned alternative to our current way of designing them. Yes, they don't like the car and find McMansion suburbs depressing, but that isn't the thrust of the book. I don't find it particularly leftist either, as one reviewer here has claimed. Indeed, bureaucratic control and subsidy of the current development market is big-government at its most mindless. The current state of sprawl is an accident, according to the authors, often brought about by engineering over-design, which relies more on meeting highway standards and less on human need.
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Summary: Elegant and compelling
Review: This book is a terrific overview of how the priorities of the modern suburb - big lawns, cul de sacs, wide streets for safety vehicles, no sidewalks, homes set off the street or walled off entirely, single use developments, homes all priced in the same narrow range, have undermined the community ideal by creating traffic clogged main roads (because there are so few roads that actually go anywhere), non-existent pedestrian traffic (you need a car to get anywhere) and lack of true public gathering places. Some of the other reviewers have termed this school of thought "liberal" - I wouldn't call it that. By describing how the cascading layer of well-intentioned and disconnected regulations that created what we have now, the authors make the compelling point that government regulation and lack of community involvement at the macro level have actually caused the problem and they go to great pains to outline their remedies as a repurpose of government involvement as opposed to an expansion. Indeed, what is heartening and exciting about this book and the movement it represents is all around the country there are "new urbanist"enclaves being built that are selling for double digit premiums to the more traditional suburban tract homes and cul de sacs nearby. Many citizens want to live in a place where they can walk places, meet their neighbors, live amongst people of different incomes than themselves, and look at homes that are pleasing to the eye. This being America - money talks. And homes in places like Seaside and Celebration in Florida are going for prices that make you think they are really located in San Francisco or New York. Market forces may end up making this movement take off more than any other factor. But this book is a great overview. Yes, it makes qualitative judgements about what constitutes an ugly corner store (a Quick Mart with a big sign and a parking lot in the front) and lampoons the 8 lane super-roads that cut through cities like Atlanta as an abomination - but then again, who could possibly disagree. A great book that will make you think differently about your community.
Rating:
Summary: Very well presented description of problems
Review: This is probably the best book of this genre-well done, well written, not shrill. It has very detailed descriptions of how suburbs are designed and built, and how they lead to traffic, sprawl, and neighborhoods lacking in sprawl. Its not too preachy - as some books of this ilk tend to be. Great explanations of why there are no sidewalks in new neighborhoods, why traffic increases as roads get bigger, and where have all the trees gone?!?!?!
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Summary: The destruction of America by suburbanization
Review: I've always found urban planning extremely interesting. Hundreds of years ago, William Penn layed out the streets of Philadelphia, carefully placing blocks of city among grand urban parks. He joined a group that for thousands of years has been trying to find the perfect combinations that will result in a great place to live. "Suburban Nation" looks at the drastic change of direction that neighborhood planning has taken over the last fifty years and the negative results that have become of it. We've transformed from a country of small towns and cities into a sprawl of ill spaced residential developments, shopping malls, and parking lots. It's no longer possible to walk anywhere, as most Americans average 6-12 car trips a day to accomplish tasks like buying milk at the store or driving to the park to go for a walk. Malls have replaced Main St. as our shopping centers while super super markets have replaced our corner grocery stores. Is this really what defines the American Dream? Is this really the way to live?
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