This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America / Edition 1

by Anthony Flint

Overview

Despite a modest revival in city living, Americans are spreading out more than ever—into "exurbs" and "boomburbs" miles from anywhere, in big houses in big subdivisions. We cling to the notion of safer neighborhoods and better schools, but what we get, argues Anthony Flint, is long commutes, crushing gas prices and higher taxes—and a landscape of strip malls and office parks badly in need of a makeover.

This Land tells the untold story of development in America—how the landscape is shaped by a furious clash of political, economic and cultural forces. It is the story of burgeoning anti-sprawl movement, a 1960s-style revolution of New Urbanism, smart growth, and green building. And it is the story of landowners fighting back on the basis of property rights, with free-market libertarians, homebuilders, road pavers, financial institutions, and even the lawn-care industry right alongside them.

The subdivisions and extra-wide roadways are encroaching into the wetlands of Florida, ranchlands in Texas, and the desert outside Phoenix and Las Vegas. But with up to 120 million more people in the country by 2050, will the spread-out pattern cave in on itself? Could Americans embrace a new approach to development if it made sense for them?

A veteran journalist who covered planning, development, and housing for the Boston Globe for sixteen years and a visiting scholar in 2005 at the Harvard Design School, Flint reveals some surprising truths about the future and how we live in This Land.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801884191
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	05/10/2006
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	763,854
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.06(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anthony Flint is a fellow and director of public affairs at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the author of Wrestling with Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Developing America
1. Grids and Greenfields
2. Suburbia's Promise, and Curse
3. New Paradigm: New Urbanism
4. The Smart Growth Revolution
5. Walk Daily, Buy Local, Build Green
6. Hands Off My Land
7. Dream Defenders and Sprawl Inc.
8. Pitched Battles
9. The Density Dilemma
10. Smart, and Fair
11. Planning and Disaster
Conclusion: Six Healthy Habits for Sensible Growth
Notes
Bibliographical Essay
Acknowledgments
Index

What People are Saying About This

Ben Bradlee Jr.

A revealing portrait of how America lives today. His trenchant chronicling of the emerging smart growth movement's challenge to the suburban sprawl ethos is a clarion call for a national conversation about how the country should grow.

E. O. Wilson

"This important book is spot-on in its analysis of America's deepening land use problems and refreshingly upbeat in its account of win-win solutions arising around the country. Flint's fingertip knowledge of detail is especially to be admired."

Richard Florida

With evidence growing regarding the impact of density on innovation and economic growth, Anthony Flint's excellent This Land couldn't come along at a better time. It's an essential read for those working to understand and build more vibrant and livable communities.

— Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class

From the Publisher

With evidence growing regarding the impact of density on innovation and economic growth, Anthony Flint's excellent This Land couldn't come along at a better time. It's an essential read for those working to understand and build more vibrant and livable communities.
—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class

A revealing portrait of how America lives today. His trenchant chronicling of the emerging smart growth movement's challenge to the suburban sprawl ethos is a clarion call for a national conversation about how the country should grow.
—Ben Bradlee Jr., author and former Deputy Managing Editor of the Boston Globe

Among the hundreds of books about metropolitan growth, This Land stands out as an extremely engaging and perceptive chronicle of the current state of the smart growth and new urbanist movements. Highlighting the fundamental American tension between individual and collective purposes, Flint compellingly articulates the challenges ahead.
—Ann Forsyth, Director, Metropolitan Design Center

This important book is spot-on in its analysis of America's deepening land use problems and refreshingly upbeat in its account of win-win solutions arising around the country. Flint's fingertip knowledge of detail is especially to be admired.
—E. O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University

Ann Forsyth

Among the hundreds of books about metropolitan growth, This Land stands out as an extremely engaging and perceptive chronicle of the current state of the smart growth and new urbanist movements. Highlighting the fundamental American tension between individual and collective purposes, Flint compellingly articulates the challenges ahead.

Edward O. Wilson

This important book is spot-on in its analysis of America's deepening land use problems and refreshingly upbeat in its account of win-win solutions arising around the country. Flint's fingertip knowledge of detail is especially to be admired.

Editorial Reviews

As an inquiry into the backlash against 'smart growth' . . . it offers valuable insights and unsettling observations from the frontlines of the battles over land use and suburban development.

Urban Affairs Review - Tom Urbaniak

Well researched, well written... very personable and readable. Recommended for all readers.

Northeastern Naturalist

This Land offers a provocative and insightful overview of the challenges of sprawl.

Boston Globe

Those who truly hate sprawl and want to fight back would be well advised to read this book.

Audubon

In this engaging, vivid, and provocative work, journalist Flint (Boston Globe) consolidates years of covering the causes and effects of sprawl (unplanned suburban expansion calling for increased reliance upon cars). His sympathies for those attempting to prevent further sprawl are apparent, but he still approaches various groups with a dispassionately critical eye, examining the so-called New Urbanists dedicated to walking neighborhoods, smart-growth proponents focused on transportation structures, and even Earth Liberation Front activists deemed terrorists by the FBI. Flint acknowledges the various shortcomings of these disparate efforts but saves his most severe criticism for "Sprawl, Inc.," the powerful coterie of libertarians, academics, and developers who use misleading rhetoric to label any government intervention social engineering, thus blithely disregarding both the intentional government policies that initially shaped suburbanization and the continuing, often hidden subsidization of sprawl. Concluding with suggestions intended to frame sprawl opposition as conservative rather than liberal, Flint neglects affordable housing but generally makes a creative and convincing case. Written with analytical rigor but also a crafty journalistic eye for the human-interest story that crystallizes an abstract theme, this book merits inclusion in any library and may spark discussion as misguided housing patterns reach crisis proportions.-Whitney Strub, UCLA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Engaging, vivid and provocative work. Written with analytical rigor but also a crafty journalistic eye for the human-interest story that crystallizes an abstract theme, this book merits inclusion in any library.
—Library Journal

A panoramic and extraordinarily up-to-date account of the struggle over how America builds.
—Philip Langdon, New Urban News

This Land offers a provocative and insightful overview of the challenges of sprawl.
—Boston Globe

Those who truly hate sprawl and want to fight back would be well advised to read this book.
—Audubon

Well researched, well written . . . very personable and readable. Recommended for all readers.
—Northeastern Naturalist

Flint provides a historical perspective on how we became a suburban nation . . . with the easy-flowing, narrative skill of a journalist.
—Lawrence Bluestone, Architecture Boston

As an inquiry into the backlash against 'smart growth' . . . it offers valuable insights and unsettling observations from the frontlines of the battles over land use and suburban development.
—Tom Urbaniak, Urban Affairs Review

Cear, well-written overview of the sprawl debate.
—Jackie Begley, Berkeley Planning Journal

This Land is an important discussion of the future of America, its cities, and what lies outside of it.
—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher

A panoramic and extraordinarily up-to-date account of the struggle over how America builds.

New Urban News - Philip Langdon

This Land is an important discussion of the future of America, its cities, and what lies outside of it.

Midwest Book Review

Those who truly hate sprawl and want to fight back would be well advised to read this book.

Audubon

Cear, well-written overview of the sprawl debate.

Berkeley Planning Journal - Jackie Begley

Flint provides a historical perspective on how we became a suburban nation . . . with the easy-flowing, narrative skill of a journalist.

Architecture Boston - Lawrence Bluestone