With the revolt against sprawl gaining momentum, more and more writers are
challenging the myth that growth is inevitable, beneficial, and resisted only by
nostalgic Arcadians or selfish NIMBYs. But it's not just this challenge that will
disturb the boosters, real-estate profiteers, and other architects of sprawl:
their critics also offer plenty of excellent advice
on how to fight unsound development and supplant it with more livable
alternatives.
Better Not Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve Your
Community by Eben Fodor (New Society Publishers, $14.95) demolishes the argument
that growth is an economic necessity. Fodor shows, for example, that it can cost
a community more than it gains in tax revenues to build the infrastructure to
expand ($25,000 per home, according to some studies). Harshly criticizing the
bogus pastoralism that persuades us that our dream dwelling is a gigantic house
surrounded by an acre of lawn, Fodor asks just how much room we need, anyway.
Between 1970 and 1990, new homes became almost 600 square feet bigger, stretching
the space per person from 478 to 790 square feet-gobbling up not just the
suburban turf, but depleting distant forests. Data like this and a useful
resource list make Fodor's book an effective crowbar in the sprawlbuster's
toolbox.
There Goes the Neighborhood:
Protecting Your Home and Community From Poor Development Choices by Kim Patrick
Kobza (Neighborhood America Press, $17.95) is a practical manual to help people
organize against inappropriate development. Especially useful for
beginning activists perturbed about the latest megamall threatening to encroach
on their neighborhood, it tells how to choose consultants, raise funds, do
effective public relations, control meetings, and, when all else fails, go to
court.
Toward Sustainable Communities: Resources for Citizens and Their
Governments by Mark Roseland (New
Society Publishers, $19.95) covers everything from bottom-line tactics of
resisting bad development to creating better transit and reducing waste. Roseland
calculates some of the costs we pay for environmental destruction, such as the
$310 billion annual subsidies that bankroll our dependence on the automobile. He
emphasizes approaches to community
development that rely heavily on local resources, foster green businesses, and
encourage stronger citizen participation in the planning process. Roseland
presents a wealth of examples of bold attempts to reduce pollution and sprawl,
such as taming cars by banning them from the city center in Freiburg, Germany, or
requiring tenants to forgo car ownership as a condition of residence in an
apartment complex in Edinburgh.
Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl Is Undermining America's
Environment, Economy, and Social Fabric by F. Kaid Benfield, Matthew D. Raimi,
and Donald D. T. Chen (Natural Resources Defense Council, Surface Transportation
Policy Project, $20) lays out damning information about runaway development in
marvelous detail, and documents how sprawl has turned U.S. transportation into an
inefficient, nerve-racking battlefield of road warriors. One reason, they say, is
that miles traveled per capita exploded from 3,979 in 1960 to a staggering 9,220
in 1995. Also covered are efforts to create "smart growth" in cities such as
Portland, plus tactics to curb growth, design dense yet pleasant housing, and
preserve agricultural land. The book may seem too technical to some readers, but
it often requires more than a little wonkiness to outsmart developers.
The Transit Metropolis: A Global
Inquiry by Robert Cervero (Island Press, $45)
is a formidably comprehensive look at transit systems from around the world.
Explaining how people get around in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Zurich, and a
half-dozen other major cities, Cervero covers mistakes, successes, and long
histories of trial-and-error.
Then he returns to the United States to tally the
cost of ignoring such lessons: "Accidents, pollution, social disruption, global
climate change, and other externalities put annual subsidies for motoring in the
United States in the neighborhood of $2,000 for every man, woman, and child." Of
the problems facing public transit, he concludes, "The gross underpricing of
automobile travel-especially along heavily trafficked corridors where transit is
most needed-heads the list."
Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town by
Brian Donahue (Yale University Press, $27.50) is a change of pace from the
titles above. Instead of presenting
diverse case studies, it paints an intimate picture of how one town,
Weston, Connecticut, rescued land from sprawl and restored part of it
to sustainable farming and forestry. Donahue got involved in this project after
an epiphany on a mountain in Colorado that the biggest threat to such wilderness
was the ecologically fatal suburban lifestyle, which demands resources from all
over the world.
A wonderful addition to the literature of urban and small-scale
farming by Gene Logsdon, Michael Ableman, and Wendell Berry, the book maps out
the possibilities for a greening of the suburbs. Basing his observations on the
history of New England forests, Donahue sees
sustainable farming reviving again "within the forest" (a return to
Native agricultural practices, really). Increasing the amount of food our
communities grow, Donahue says, reduces "the pressure we place on other
ecosystems around the world today."—Bob Schildgen
New from Sierra Club Books
The Lost River: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Transformation on Wild Water
by Richard Bangs. An adventurer famed for daring expeditions explores Ethiopia's
Tekeze River.
Adventuring in the Chesapeake Bay Area by John Bowen. A comprehensive guide to
natural and historic sites among coves, fishing villages, and rivers of the
tidewater country. Completely updated edition.
Order these titles from the Sierra Club Store by phone, (800) 935-1056, through
our Web site, www.sierraclub.org/books, or by writing 85 Second St., 2nd Floor,
San Francisco, CA 94105.
(C) 2000 Sierra Club. Reproduction of this article is not permitted without permission. Contact sierra.magazine@sierraclub.org for more information.
