The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) [Paperback]

Richard A. Walker (Author), William Cronon (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books | Publication Date: April 2008

Despite a population of 7 million people, the San Francisco Bay Area is more greensward than asphalt jungle, more open space than hardscape. The "Country in the City" tells the story of how the jigsaw geography of this greenbelt has been set into place. Richard A. Walker is professor of geography and chair of the California Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley. His publications include "The New Social Economy: Reworking the Division of Labor" and "The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of California Agribusiness".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Richard Walker has written a sparkling history of the greening of the Bay Area that does much more than tell a fascinating untold story. In the tradition of Raymond Williams, The Country in the City throws the whole relationship between city and country into a fresh light, one that is not only bracing but which illuminates a path forward for green politics everywhere." Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Botany of Desire "In The Country in the City, a history of local conservation and environmental activism, Walker delivers a deeply loving paean to this place where he grew up and has lived and worked and been a political activist all of his life." San Francisco Chronicle, Book Review "Walker has done in this book what essentially has never before been attempted by any other scholar for any other major American city: he has researched, analyzed, and narrated the evolving environmental politics of San Francisco from their origins in the nineteenth century to their explosive growth in the decades following the Second World War, right down to the present... A first-rate piece of scholarship." from the Foreword by William Cronon

From the Publisher

"The Country in the City is a masterful and much-needed chronicle of the Bay Area's diverse ecopolitical scene. It is a fruitful serendipity that such a rich and wonderful place has a scholar who, with intelligence and affection, can gracefully capture its green evolution." - Orion

"Walker makes our landscape come alive as the arena of an ongoing struggle to figure out how to live lightly and well in this remarkable corner of the planet." - Bay Nature

"Meticulously and succinctly, Walker recounts the early vision and the prolonged determination that resulted in our precious - and all-too-rare - situation. He guides the reader through the first stirrings of environmental consciousness, which soon were followed by struggles to set aside preserves, then forestall depredations, and finally establish benign public policies to guide development and land management. After reading this book, even those who already possess a green tinge in their thinking will understand the promise and peril of modern times as never before." - San Francisco Chronicle, Outdoors

"Readers of The Country in the City will enjoy immersing themselves in the Bay Area's story. Readers will see that just as nature made this place, so did people - and it's up to people to keep doing so." - Greenbelt Alliance

"[I]n The Country in the City, a history of local conservation and environmental activism, Walker delivers a deeply loving paean to this place where he grew up and has lived and worked and been a political activist all of his life." - San Francisco Chronicle, Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 378 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr (April 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295988150
• ISBN-13: 978-0295988153
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #525,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine pick for any collection interested in urban planning, ecology, or Bay Area history alike., December 4, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) (Hardcover)

THE COUNTRY IN THE CITY: THE GREENING OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA should be a 'most' for any San Francisco Bay Area or comprehensive California library, whether it be a college-level or public lending collection. Students of California history and geography alike will appreciate this story of how the Bay Area's greenbelt was planned into an urban environment - and how each piece of it was fought for. From environmental battles which spread out to affect urban policies across the country to the involvement of businesses and individuals like, THE COUNTRY IN THE CITY is packed with insights on how early conservation affects today's urban environment, making it a fine pick for any collection interested in urban planning, ecology, or Bay Area history alike.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Green Activism, Bay Area Style, September 29, 2007

By 

Peter Richardson (San Francisco Bay Area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) (Hardcover)

This book really helped me understand the world I was born into--Berkeley in the late 1950s. As Richard Walker points out, that world reflected the work of countless Bay Area activists reaching back to John Muir. Many were civic-minded and dedicated women, and some started or built environmental organizations with national impact. This book describes it all: the people, the organizations, the issues, the victories (always temporary), the challenges, and the movement's shortcomings and unintended consequences.

Always attuned to class issues, Walker acknowledges that these movements were mostly led by upper-class folks and ultimately turned parts of the Bay Area (e.g., Marin) into lightly populated enclaves for the well off. Working families in the Bay Area have had great access to public parks and the coast, but activists so far have done little to impede the siting of toxic nastiness in low-income neighborhoods. Walker questions the link between efforts to slow or stop growth and the Bay Area's high housing prices, but he notes that the growth that has occurred--in the eastern part of Contra Costa County and the San Joaquin Valley, for example--isn't very smart and may be linked to the inner Bay Area's aversion to virtually any growth at all. At the end of the day, though, it's hard to resist Walker's conclusion that Bay Area residents have plenty to be thankful for. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back to the Land, August 23, 2007

By 

Janet B. Thiessen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) (Hardcover)

Professor Walker's book is a solidly researched, comprehensive history of the environmental movement in the Bay Area. Written in a clear, accessible style, the book covers a century of landsaving, from the early days of the Sierra Club to the exciting years from 1965-75 when most of our environmental protection laws were passed, to the recent use of land trusts , conservation easements, and urban growth boundaries to safeguard the Bay Area's precious green heritage. This book will stand, along with John Hart's "Legacy" and Amy Meyer's "New Guardians for the Golden Gate" as the canonical texts in the environmental history of California for years to come.