Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

About this book

A manifesto by Americas most controversial and celebrated town planners proposing an alternative model for community design. 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 sprawls 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 drivers 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 sprawls 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.