Rating: 
Summary: wonderfully cynical
Review: The _Geography of Nowhere_ is a scathing attack on post-WWII (sub-)urban planning. Kunstler had no formal training at the time he wrote the book and channels his anger and cynicism towards his surroundings into an effective - yet readable - analysis of our cities. People are beginning once again to champion 'living downtown' and walking and using public transit. Kunstler did it ten years ago - at a time when very few of us were thinking about it. Unfortunately, as is common with many critiques, Kunstler does not have very many solutions to urban planning problems - he leaves those for his next book, _Home from Nowhere_.
Rating: 
Summary: why America is so GoshDarn ugly
Review: This book is a treat. It's one of those books that helps give you words for what you've always felt, but haven't articulated. Kunstler approaches the topic of why America is so GoshDarn ugly from many different perspectives. The parts of the book that focus on the histories of human habitats are not as thigh-slappinlgly funny as the parts in which he describes (with a dead-on accuracy that might make you cry) our own late-twentieth century American (ridiculous) landscape, but are compelling nonetheless for the sheer volume of information. Certain passages in the book are so elegantly written you will read them out loud to friends. Others are so funny you will laugh to yourself. Read this book with a pen to underline all the good stuff. It will no doubt change your perspective.
Rating: 
Summary: The evils of the motorcar
Review: This book is an exploration into what's wrong with suburbia. When he was a child, Kunstler's parents moved from the City into a development on Long Island. Kunstler enjoyed the new places to roam in his new neighborhood, but it wasn't long before the wild lands near his new home were also built up. This experience seems to have left a bad taste in Kunstler's mouth, prompting him to write this book about city planning run amuck.
The book begins with a chapter on colonial American settlement patterns, noting the cultural differences in the settlements in the North and the South. This is followed by a chapter on Nineteenth Century city planning and culture. Following this is a history of the earliest suburb development projects, including Llewellyn Park near New York City and Riverside near Chicago. Then comes a chapter on the evils of Modernism as an architectural movement, a chapter whose topic goes a little astray of the city planning theme found in the rest of the book- -Kunstler certainly likes to rant about bad style! The next two chapters are about how cars have had such a negative influence on American city planning. Then we find a chapter-long case study of Sarasota Springs as an example of planning gone awry. This is followed by another chapter about architectural styles, this time the styles of residential buildings. The next chapter takes up Schuylerville, NY as another case study. This is followed by a chapter discussing Detroit (a planning nightmare, because of cars), Portland (a utopia, at least in Kunstler's view, because of planning), and Los Angeles (Kunstler points out that it was the streetcars and railroads who are to blame for the layout of Los Angeles, not cars). The case study theme is continued in the next chapter, where Kunstler analyzes Disneyworld and Atlantic City as "Capitals of Unreality". Finally, in chapter 13, Kunstler interviews the planners behind what he considers some of the most well-thought-out recent development projects in the country, including Seaside, Florida, San Francisco, Western Massachusetts, and the Vermont Land Trust. At the end of the book are the endnotes for sources cited in the text, a bibliography, and an index.
Kunstler makes a number of valid points that are worth cogitating over. He argues "the situation in a big city is the same as in a small town: the economy IS the community. Without one, you cannot have the other." He lays much of the blame for the evils of suburbia on automobiles. He points out that city planning boards of the early Twentieth century "were often dominated by realtors, car dealers, and other with a keen personal interest in advancing auto use, and little thought for long-term consequences." He admits that suburban developments, with their air, light, and greenery, represented an improvement for people who moved to them from cramped apartments in big cities, but he stresses "The main problem [with sub-divisions] was that [they] dispensed with all the traditional connections and continuities of community life, and replaced them with little more than cars and television." Later he tells us, "we have lost our knowledge of how physically to connect things in our everyday world, except by car and telephone."
Kunstler does an excellent job at pointing out the problems caused by the automobile and by planners who put cars first and people second. Like Lewis Mumford, he seems to believe that with better planning, especially regional planning, cities would be much more livable places. While I agree with most of Kunstler's observations, I'm not entirely convinced that planning represents the entire problem and solution. In Edge City, Joel Garreau makes the point that developers are in the business of building sub-developments to make money. They build suburbs the way they do because there seems to be an incredible demand for them. For this reason, I think studying which developments sell and why in the manner that Garreau did may be at least as important for addressing the problems of suburbia as dictating new patterns of development through planning boards. Planners and dreamers such as Kunstler may have wonderful ideas about what cities should look like, but they also need to meet the realities of what the consumers are really looking for when they buy a home.
Unlike Garreau, who tried to keep his personal opinions about suburbia secondary to his research, Kunstler is very passionate with his criticism of the new form of American cities. Using words like `crummy', `lame-brained,' and `stupid,' to describe development projects, Kunstler leaves us with no doubt about the depth of his distaste. Such vocabulary choices, however, can come across as being somewhat juvenile. In general, I found this book to be interesting in places as well as informative, but overall, I found I tended to agree more with Garreau's approach to the topic than Kunstler's.
Rating:
Summary: small town extraterrestrial visits modern city
Review: This is something of a sightseeing tour through the depredations of modern urban design. Highly anecdotal in its approach, choppy in style, it covers no real new ground. It is, however, a useful survey of current criticism of urban planning. I was distressed to see his bibliography contained no mention of Jane Jacob's 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities'-- the seminal work taking to task the concepts manifested in suburban wastelands and decaying inner cities. Kunstler's approach swings between vague economic, historic and philosophical tracts and some fairly well traveled material on building and urban design theories. The most prominent villain in this take is the car. This really doesn't provide a useful starting point for designing more livable cities. Not unless you acknowledge that the car is here to stay, and that urban design will have to come grips with its presence and still aspire to build cities which provide intense community centred cultures.Urban design reflects directly our values as a society. Answers as fundamental as Kunstler is proposing cannot be broached successfully without changing those values. That is an idealistic and realistically futile prospect. The vocal and activist polarities on this issue, the utopian and maudlin pragmatic, dictate the limited attention and action it gets in the political reality. Railing against the automobile, corporate priorities, environmental inattention or our alienation from the homogenous communities of our past will finally relegate the issue to a few academics and misanthropes. The real solution, such as one exists, is going to have to come from a consensus which realizes that population growth, economic realities, automobiles, and social heterogeneity are going to be part of our future and have to be incorporated in a far from perfect outcome. But one which will hopefully ensure human and community values have a presence and priority in planning decisions. The potential trap is that a new paradigm replaces the last with some faddish design manifesto completely inappropriate to many local conditions, imposing some sentimental pastiche on problems which are not primarily architectural in nature. Like environmentalism, city design works best at the involved community level, where unique urban aspirations can be iterated with economic and ergonomic necessity.
Rating:
Summary: Passionately written, but logically flawed
Review: While I agree with many of Kuntsler's opinions about the nature of the suburban landscape and our absurd, unsustainable use of the automobile, I believe the vitriolic tone of his prose damages his credibility. It's easy to be critical when you have no practical experience in the development realm. As a landscape architect, I can say with certainty that many of his "facts" are inaccurate and/or unresearched, or else simply opinion stated as fact. Design professionals were well aware of many of the issues he raised long before this book was written and had made real effort to address them, but changes of this nature take a long time to get into the cultural mainstream. Furthermore, he obviously failed to research many of the issues that city planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects face on a daily basis (such as liability issues, limited authority on projects, economic issues, and the difficulties faced in writing new ordinances, including public education). Such omissions create huge holes in the fabric of his argument and fail to convey the full complexity of the issue. His subsequent book, Home from Nowhere, is much better written and in it, he is clearly more informed about his topic.
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