The geography of nowhere : the rise and decline of America's man-made landscape

the Geography Of Nowhere Traces America's Evolution From A Nation Of Main Streets And Coherent Communities To A Land Where Every Place Is Like No Place In Particular, Where The Cities Are Dead Zones And The Countryside Is A Wasteland Of Cartoon Architecture And Parking Lots. In Elegant And Often Hilarious Prose, Kunstler Depicts Our Nation's Evolution From The Pilgrim Settlements To The Modern Auto Suburb In All Its Ghastliness. the Geography Of Nowhere Tallies Up The Huge Economic, Social, And Spiritual Costs That America Is Paying For Its Car-crazed Lifestyle. It Is Also A Wake-up Call For Citizens To Reinvent The Places Where We Live And Work, To Build Communities That Are Once Again Worthy Of Our Affection. Kunstler Proposes That By Reviving Civic Art And Civic Life, We Will Rediscover Public Virtue And A New Vision Of The Common Good. the Future Will Require Us To Build Better Places, Kunstler Says, or The Future Will Belong To Other People In Other Societies. publishers Weekly in This Inconsistent But Provocative Analysis, Kunstler ( Blood Solstice ), A Novelist And Journalist, Mixes Memoir, Historical Essay And Reporting To Condemn The Car-dependent Suburbanization Of America. Kunstler, Who Writes Ably, Casts A Very Wide Net: He Finds The Roots Of American Individualism In Pre-colonial Property Ownership, Decries The Abstracting Influence Of Modernism On City Architecture And Slams Road-builder Robert Moses To Support His Contention That Suburbia Is A Social Environment Without Soul. He Offers An Intriguing History Of The Decline Of Saratoga Springs, N.y., His Hometown, Describes Trips To Failing Detroit And Well-planned Portland, Ore., And Dissects ``capitals Of Unreality'' Like Disney World And Atlantic City. His Worthy But Sketchily Described Solutions--a Sustainable Economy, Better Neighborhood Development And Preservation Of The Countryside--could, However, Each Merit A Book. (june) "Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built since the end of World War II. This tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside is not simply an expression of our economic predicament, but in large part a cause. It is the everyday environment where most Americans live and work, and it represents a gathering calamity whose effects we have hardly begun to measure." "In The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where everyplace is like noplace in particular, where the city is a dead zone and the countryside a wasteland of cars and blacktop. Now that the great suburban build-out is over, Kunstler argues, we are stuck with the consequences: a national living arrangement that destroys civic life while imposing enormous social costs and economic burdens. Kunstler explains how our present zoning laws impoverish the life of our communities, and how all our efforts to make automobiles happy have resulted in making human beings miserable. He shows how common building regulations have led to a crisis in affordable housing, and why street crime is directly related to our traditional disregard for the public realm." "Kunstler takes the reader on a historical journey to understand how Americans came to view their landscape as a commodity for exploitation rather than a social resource. He explains why our towns and cities came to be wounded by the abstract dogmas of Modernism, and reveals the paradox of a people who yearn for places worthy of their affection, yet bend their efforts in an economic enterprise of destruction that degrades and defaces what they most deeply desire." "Kunstler proposes sensible remedies for this American crisis of landscape and townscape: a return to sound principles of planning and the lost art of good place-making, an end to the tyranny of compulsive commuting, the unreality of the suburb, the alienation and violence of downtown, the vulgarity of the highway strip, and the destruction of our countryside. The Geography of Nowhere puts the issue of how we actually live squarely at the center of our ongoing debate about the nation's economy and America's future."--BOOK JACKET Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built since the end of World War II. This tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside is not simply an expression of our economic predicament, but in large part a cause. It is the everyday environment where most Americans live and work, and it represents a gathering calamity whose effects we have hardly begun to measure. In The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where everyplace is like noplace in particular, where the city is a dead zone and the countryside a wasteland of cars and blacktop. Now that the great suburban build-out is over, Kunstler argues, we are stuck with the consequences: a national living arrangement that destroys civic life while imposing enormous social costs and economic burdens. Kunstler explains how our present zoning laws impoverish the life of our communities, and how all our efforts to make automobiles happy have resulted in making human beings miserable. He shows how common building regulations have led to a crisis in affordable housing, and why street crime is directly related to our traditional disregard for the public realm. Kunstler takes the reader on a historical journey to understand how Americans came to view their landscape as a commodity for exploitation rather than a social resource. He explains why our towns and cities came to be wounded by the abstract dogmas of Modernism, and reveals the paradox of a people who yearn for places worthy of their affection, yet bend their efforts in an economic enterprise of destruction that degrades and defaces what they most deeply desire. Kunstler proposes sensible remedies for this American crisis of landscape and townscape: a return to sound principles of planning and the lost art of good place-making, an end to the tyranny of compulsive commuting, the un

In this "eminently relevant and important book" (Library Journal), the author traces the evolution of America's landscape, where every place looks like no place in particular, and where accommodating the automobile jeopardizes the individual and the environment.

The Geography of Nowhere traces America's evolution from a nation of Main Streets and coherent communities to a land where every place is like no place in particular, where the cities are dead zones and the countryside is a wasteland of cartoon architecture and parking lots. In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision of the common good. "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies." The Geography of Nowhere has become a touchstone work in the two decades since its initial publication, its incisive commentary giving language to the feeling of millions of Americans that our nation's suburban environments were ceasing to be credible human habitats. Since that time, the work has inspired city planners, architects, legislators, designers and citizens everywhere. In this special 20th Anniversary edition, dozens of authors and experts in various fields share their perspective on James Howard Kunstler's brave and seminal work.