{"id":1455,"date":"2011-03-28T20:29:34","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T01:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=1455"},"modified":"2011-03-31T19:51:21","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T00:51:21","slug":"the-agile-city-urbanmegasuburban-america-and-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/the-agile-city-urbanmegasuburban-america-and-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agile City: Urban\/MegaSuburban America and Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

[amazon_link id=”1597267244″ target=”_blank” ]\"The[\/amazon_link]In 1940, Woody Guthrie wrote, “This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to the New York Island…” Though parts of his song made it into school songbooks and the public consciousness, it’s underlying message runs counter to the notions of independent Americans. The land, Woody contends, belongs to all of us and not just people who put up fences around their<\/em> property. While he would probably find that an extreme expression of his views, Author James Russel maintains that we all have a stake in the land, no matter who holds its deed.<\/p>\n

In The Agile City<\/strong>,\u00a0 Russel contends that the United States lags behind the rest of the world in land use management because of our peculiar notions of property and wide open spaces.<\/p>\n

While it’s no surprise that Americans will rise up in protest at any suggestion that the government might tell them what they can do with their land, or where they can or can’t build, Russell makes a convincing case that banking, real estate and government have created a growth engine that pushes the population further and further from city centers into less and less sustainable regions that previously supported needed farmland and buffer zones.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the author points out, building beltways around cities to avoid urban congestion has turned out to be a sure recipe for spreading congestion over a wider area, as anyone who commutes on one can attest.<\/p>\n

What’s needed, he asserts, is a return to cities, but not just to cities as they have been, but to cities that adopt newer more agile<\/em> models for transportation, green construction and mixed use communities.<\/p>\n

The American dream of a house in the suburbs was a fools dream, he points out in a well researched series of chapters on land, building, and transportation. That doesn’t mean that a better dream can’t replace it, one where cities thrive and green spaces are valued for their contributions to the environment and the economy.<\/p>\n

Though the author provides no shortage of global and domestic examples of good and bad land use and city planning, he fails to offer a compelling call to action or program for the revolution he so clearly feels is needed.<\/p>\n

As Guthrie pointed out seventy years ago, we live on a land both beautiful and bountiful, but The Agile City makes a strong case that we are squandering both qualities by carving the land up without regard for its future.<\/p>\n

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
\nThe sign was painted, said ‘Private Property.’
\nBut on the backside, it didn’t say nothing.
\nThis land was made for you and me.<\/em><\/p>\n

– Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Links\/Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n