Last Harvest: From Cornfield to New Town: Real Estate Development from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century, and Why We Live in Houses Anyway

Honestly, I never would have expected to have been particularly interested in a book about the process by which a housing development came to be. But in the hands of Witold Rybczynski, this is a compelling, dramatic, very nearly unputdownable read. Interspersing details of septic systems and vinyl siding with a capsule history of zoning ordinances and suburban planning, Last Harvest is a remarkably good book.

I generally like Rybczynski's books quite a lot. I was hoping this one would have more of a discussion of the theory behind New Urbanism. Instead, I got interviews with developers & planning commissioners, and the transformation from an idea to a very different reality. So some interesting information about how the modern business and politics of housing work, but that's not what I was looking for.

Although I'm not an architect, developer, town supervisor, etc, I felt this was an interesting book. Rybczynski details how a farm in Pennsylvania becomes a suburb and goes into the history of development, housing, permits along the way. While I felt that some drawings or pictures of the historic places he talked about would help a layman like myself understand the concepts better, I did learn some and have found myself looking at houses and developments in a different way. It's fairly dry and not a quick read but I'd recommend it just because the topic seems unique.

A book that helped me understand why so many suburban developments look the same, and are so unsatisfying. It's the economics (and to a certain extent, the politics). Rybczynski profiles a development in the Philadelphia exurbs, from the first planning until the first families move in. All along, the developers have great intentions about making a 'new traditional development': but in the end, the economics (cost of the land and building process, and the need to appeal to mass taste) make the development a lot more similar to everything else.

Not as good as fascinating as some of Rybczynski's other insightful books on buildings and spaces, but still interesting.