Rating: 
Summary: development lite
Review: This book details various perceived suburban ills and postulates some ideas that will, in the authors' view, ameloriate the current built environment. A person reading this book will have some insight in the way we settle, however, if this is all they read they will to some extent be misinformed. It is interesting to note that the authors want to harken back to a time that could be called, "The Time Before Planners." The urban form that the authors seem to be most comfortable with was generally laid out and built before planning as a profession was in charge. As a developer, I do agree with the authors ideas regarding mixed uses and building neighborhoods as opposed to subdivisions. It is my experience that the existing public works regulations primarily determine the final form of my work. The checklist in the appendix will be of some value to me. But I do not agree with the authors views that the automobile is the agent of the devil in their suburban hell. Finally, I must object to the authors' notion that elected officials must "Do the right thing" and not listen to the citizens when various proposals come up for public hearings. The authors' hubristic subjectivity on this matter is overwhelming and can not stand unchallenged.
Rating: 
Summary: Creating a clear understand of sprwal
Review: Andres Duany does nothing to convert me to the New Urbanism movement through this book. He simply gives me a reason and an understand for all in suburbia that I have detested but never understood why. The reality is that what we are doing is not working, and DPZ is producing excellent solutions. For those who can get to Kentlands or Seaside, or any of the other neighborhoods, I highly recommend it. It is easy to see why this is catching, and why we all need to push for the principles.
Rating:
Summary: An important and informative read.
Review: Copies of this book should be handed out to all property developers, city planners, homebuilders and to everyone who is concerned with our diminishing quality of life. This book clearly explains that the increasing number of suburbs, strip malls, parking lots etc are destroying people's quality of life, the environment and making victims of those who do not drive namely young people, elderly and the poor, while increasingly alienating everyone else. With the use of photographs and maps comparisons are made with traditional cities and their functions, while offering some sound alternatives. This book articulated for me the frustrations of living in a city which caters increasingly for automobiles (with little success I might add)at the expense of those who cannot drive, do not want to drive, are concerned with the environment and the quality of life and for those who wish to retain a community spirit amongst neighbors rather than live a more isolated existence. I found this book to be clear and concise and with the use of comparison photos and maps made it's point very clear. Next time any of you are stuck in traffic, think about reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Hack developers and corrupt politicians will hate this!
Review: Do not listen to the negative reviewer behind the curtain! Frankly, I am surprised that someone who has Boston as his capitol city would call cities cramped, dirty, and crime-ridden. Boston remains a beautiful and low-crime city in spite of the sprawling, hair-brained urban renewal schemes(i.e Rappaport's Charles River Park) and elevated highways that have ruined some of its most interesting neighborhoods and architecture. The reviewer obviously has no grasp of the issues involved, because he mistakes elitism for trying to change outdated development patterns that result in towns and cities that don't work (unless of course you are an automobile). I qualify as not being an elitist since I have lived in one of Boston's poorer neighborhoods my entire life.
Rating:
Summary: Buy several copies, send them to your politicians
Review: Without question, Duany et. al. address the most important political problem we face today. All the other political "hot button" issues are minor episodes in comparison. The development alternative proposed by this book is doubly important because it both saves the environment *and* is profitable for builders. How often can environmentalists promise that?
Rating:
Summary: Take Back the Streets!
Review: The citizens of the Suburban Nation have been heard from. One of them, Jack Daly, presents his diatribe for our perusal. Note that less than a quarter of the people reading his review found it helpful. That seems about right. It corresponds to the situation in suburbia, where the most negative NIMBYs are controlling the scene, despite the fact that they are more and more in the minority every day. Modern suburbia created NIMBYism, the phenomenon of not wanting your neighbor to build the same house as yours next door to you. Modern suburbia, i.e. sprawl, is where Spiro Agnew's real nattering nabobs of negativity live: they want to hole up in their cabins-in-the-woods or MacMansions, turn on their cable tvs, and have the rest of the world go away. (Daly will probably now organize a campaign to have people declare my review unhelpful.) For many of us who choose to continue to live in suburbia, sprawl is ruining the places we love. But the solution is not to copy the NIMBYs, who want to stop all other development once they have their new ranchburger on their own gated cul-de-sac. Most of us love our single-family houses, our neighborhoods and our small towns, and the way to keep them worthy of our affection, is to reinforce what made them good. That means that we need more than JUST a good house, a car and a traffic-free road. In the words of James Howard Kunstler, "We want places that are worth caring about, so that we will have a life worth caring about." We have many places like that, in cities, towns and suburbs. We have to learn from them, as well as from our mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking, but incomplete
Review: Has some good observations on the shortcomings of suburbia (but nothing we haven't heard before). Most intriguing are the discussions about different legal rules and zoning laws that prevent engineers from trying new designs that might work better. A real weakness of the book is the lack of in-depth examination of what works in suburbia. Highly mobile Americans do have a choice and they still choose suburbia over rural or urban areas. Suburbia, for all its drawbacks, seems to offer a clean, safe environment with housing that remains a good investment. This work could have been better if its solutions built upon those strengths rather than lay waste to the neighborhoods where more than half of Americans live.
Rating:
Summary: Historic
Review: Andres Duany has hit upon the one factor that explains many of the current problems we now face. If you want to understand how we got to where we are and how to improve our communities, you have to read this book. Mr. Duany clearly and convincingly explains sprawl's negative impact on the environment and our communities. He proposes a simple and common sense approach that restores a sense of place, human scale, and balance to our hometowns. I suggest you ignore the one negative review here. The reader clearly does not understand the basic concepts in the book. His main criticism about fleeing crime-ridden cities ignores how cities got that way and is a misunderstanding of the proposed remedies. Mr Duany is not suggesting we all live in large cities. It makes me wonder if the reviewer actually read the same book I did.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Reviews of Suburban Nation
Review: I must say right out front that I gave this book a product endorsement known as a dust-jacket blurb, because I believe it is a book of terrific importance and high seriousness for a culture that is in trouble and needs help. The trouble is the fiasco of suburbia, and the help is the tremendously valuable service that Andres Duany, Lizz Plater-Zyberk, and their project manager Jeff Speck have done in writing this indispensible book, because it not only describes the American predicament with lucidity and precision, but it prescribes a set of excellent remedies with equal verve and intelligence. The architectural firm of Duany & Plater-Zyberk (DPZ) has shown really remarkable generosity to their colleagues over the past decade, giving away their expertise -- and the fruits of their hard work -- to virtually anyone who asked for it. Practically everything I know about civic design either came directly from them, or from a source they directed me to. I imagine they would have printed and distributed "Suburban Nation" themselves -- if it weren't for the fact that people generally don't feel something is worthy unless there is a price tag on it. But the contents of this book are truly priceless, and I regard "Suburban Nation" as a gift from a heroic and generous firm to their own culture. Like all good ideas whose time has come, the New Urbanist movement, in which DPZ played a major founding role, has been greeted with raspberries and skepticism by the gate-keepers of a beleaguered status quo. Life is tragic, and there will not be a guaranteed happy ending to the mess we have made of our American townscapes and landscapes. It is going to take the moral will of a self-confident and purposeful people to restore the everyday world of our nation. This important book offers good will, encouragement, and tremendous practical knowledge. One sure measure of its success is the opposition it is stirring up from the more culturally psychotic corners of America.
Rating: 
Summary: The usual claptrap...
Review: Suburban Nation is nothing but the usual claptrap from the usual elitist suspects, excoriating Americans because, horrors!, many prefer not to live cheek-by-jowl in cramped, oh, excuse me, "quaint" congested inner city neighborhoods. These elitists portray the usual disdain amongst their ilk for the typical American, regurgitating the wornout, tired cliches about suburbia, while attempting to cloak their views as "scholarly". If suburbia were the evil horror these folks would have us believe it is, why do so many Americans prefer it over cramped, dirty, crime-ridden cities? Apparently, the authors would have us believe suburbanites are all simply greedy and fearful, and those worst sins to the liberal establishment, anti-"sophistication", and anti-diversity. Duany, Zyberk, et al...are entitled to their opinions, and entitled to live in cramped city quarters and drive their Yugo's or whatever, but please folks, don't attempt to pass your elitist drivel off as a "scholarly" piece on the horrors of suburbia. What a waste of paper.
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