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

Finally! It's been many years since the ideas of the famous duo of the New Urbanism began to spread their philosophy about how we can live in more livable communities. Finally, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (along with staffer Jeff Speck) have put their thoughts, ideas, and philosophy into a comprehensive text for us to learn and live by.

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream is sure to become a classic text of planners and those interested in urban geography for many years to come. While the ideas of Duany and Plater-Zyberk were spread by novelist, journalist, and apostle James Howard Kunstler in his books, The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere, this book represents pure Duany and Plater-Zyberk for the lay person and technician alike.

If you've read the works of Kunstler or any of the myriad of publication about why suburbia is wrong, you'll definitely want to read Suburban Nation and for those who have never delved into the mysteries of the New Urbanism, this book is going to become the bible so don't miss the writings of these key planners.

Duany and Plater-Zyberk trace the history of suburbia and how it became a problem and then explore ways to improve neighborhoods through a step-by-step plan. Community activists will be able to use this text as a blueprint for working with planning commissions and local development agencies. Appendix A is a simple eight-page checklist for :The Traditional Neighborhood Development," in it are items that help to improve a neighborhood as well as principles that "are essential and nonnegotiable." Some examples:

• Are lakes, ponds, wetlands, and other natural resources retained and celebrated?
• Is it a roughly a five-minute walk - a quarter-mile - from edge to center?
• Are all streets fronted by public or private property, rather than serving as collector roads with no purpose other than handling traffic?
• Is there a diversity of housing types located within close proximity to each other?

I highly recommend this book for anyone involved or interested in making their community a better place to live. For a great excerpt of the first chapter, visit the About.com Architecture site

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