The author belabors his point a little but this was a worthwhile read overall. It opened my mind to some things I had never thought about before, namely, how the car has completely changed the landscape of our country and ruined our sense of community because of the fact that towns are not designed for people, but for cars. This book should be referred to if ever I need to make a decision about moving to another city. ( )

Kunstler's paradigm shift directs us to urban policies which not only make us happier but give the poor a better deal. ( )

First of all, it's important to note that Kunstler's book is best characterized as a polemic and should be read as such. It's angry, sarcastic, and spiteful but in a way that manages to retain a sense of humor and a sense of the tragic.

The reason it's important to view the Geography of Nowhere as a polemic is this: many of Kunstler's points are not particularly well argued for. That's not to say there isn't interesting and insightful commentary within the book, but rather that most of the broader claims of the book presuppose a shared aesthetic and economic sensibility between author and reader. If you're not already inclined towards sheer disgust at the sight of a housing development, Kunstler is not going to convince you that you ought to be. If you are so adamant about property rights that you are willing to sacrifice every vestige of community in order to allow the building of anything anywhere, you'll be similarly unconvinced.

However, for those who are already a bit sickened and perplexed by the Sprawlscape affecting our nation Kunstler offers an explanation and a diagnosis. His first question is "How did we end up here?"

He begins with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in order to answer this question, and from there gives us a brief survey of the building and architectural trends that have developed since. What emerges is this: although the suburbs we are now familiar with first began to develop alongside railway and trolley lines, it was not until government, business, and the planning industry combined forces after WW2 that things really took a turn for the worst.

This is a familiar narrative and using it Kunstler goes on the describe the process by which we came to create a society and an economy scaled for cars rather than humans. I don't think there is anything particularity objectionable about the broad narrative, even if its become hackneyed.

What I found most interesting were some of his specific cases in which zoning laws literally forced asinine construction. This is something I was mildly aware of, but the examples Kunstler cites really helped to bring the point home. By creating nearly uniform sets of zoning regulations for communities big and small, urban and rural we've chosen convenience and perceived safety over any sort of contact with reality.

I do worry a bit about the some of Kunstler's broad conclusions. For example, it's just not obvious to me that living in one dimensional office park to mall to tract home communities is necessarily BADfor us. It's a lifestyle I find terribly unappealing, but I wonder whether or not it's really as psychologically damaging as Kunstler would have us believe. Are all the dramatics about "spiritual suffocation" and lives of "quiet desperation" any more true of today's gated communities than the similar but probably false claims made about the residents of Winesburg, Ohio? For my part, I'm loathe to paint my cultural and aesthetic adversaries as folks that subconsciously desire to trade in their lives for mine.

I also wonder how Kunstler might justify the claims he makes about disengagement from civic activities as a direct result of suburbanization. What he says fits all my preconceptions, but he doesn't bring any hard data to the table when he makes such claims.

Finally, all criticism aside, for a book written in the early 90s The Geography of Nowhere is remarkably prescient. Kunstler is flat out correct that we cannot keep building communities focused around cars, because it won't be long before we literally cannot power the cars in an effective or affordable manner. Tying up our property and our economy at large with a fleeting car culture is perhaps the biggest mistake in recent American history. In order to get ourselves out of this mess we're going to have to fundamentally revise our lifestyles and large parts of our economy. I can't help but think that the coming metamorphosis will be a painful process. ( )

Fascinating book. Got the lead to it from the Crunchy Cons book. Essential concept is that people form no bonds to their community when its houses and layout are unloveable. Zoning laws are counterproductive. We are perversely creating living spaces that do not support the community we crave. People form loyalty to their job, and move with it, because their community is unlovable, providing no significant reason to stay. ( )

If you have been wondering why every major intersection in every American suburb looks the same and why there always more strip-malls, this is the book for you. A history of how the American (sub-)urban landscape has become as bad as it is. Highly recommended. ( )