16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspired me to pursue a career in planning and city admin., June 4, 2000
This review is from: The Experience of Place: A New Way of Looking at and Dealing With our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside (Paperback)
It was Mr. Hiss' book that first inspired me to pursue a career as a city planner/city administrator. I recently reread the book to refresh much of the enthusiasm for carefully crafting a sense of place that, too often, can be dulled by the grind of bureaucracy. The New York Times is only partially right in suggesting that this book is essential reading for city planners, developers and city administrators". It also should be reread, upon occassion, to provide continued inspiration for better planning and development. The book can be effectively supplemented by Howard Kunsteler's Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
from a New Yorkers point of view, June 21, 2004
This review is from: The Experience of Place: A New Way of Looking at and Dealing With our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside (Paperback)
This book is an exploration about what makes a place look and feel right for human habitation. In the introduction, Hiss sets out some interesting goals. To justify his outlook, he states "the places where we spend our time affect the people we are and can become," and later adds "the relationship with the places we know...is a close bond...a continuum with all we are and think." It follows, then, that changes in our environment will affect ourselves as well, and that "overdevelopment and urban sprawl can damage our own lives as much as they damage our cities and countryside." Hiss goes on to argue that before changing a place, we need to make sure that the changes will nurture our growth as people, protect the natural environment, and develop jobs and homes for all. It's tough making the right decisions that will result in these sorts of positive changes, so Hiss advises that we need to learn to pay close attention to our surroundings, using all of our senses at once. If we don't do this, then bad changes in our environment will come to pass, and we will experience a sense of loss as places that are dear to us disappear.
The introduction is an intriguing essay, but for me, the rest of the book didn't live up to the goals laid out by Hiss in the introduction. The main text is divided into two parts: "Experiencing Cities," and "Encountering the Countryside." The titles themselves of these sections make it clear that the book is told entirely from a city person's point of view, a person who experiences city life on a day-to-day basis, and only makes it out into the country for short encounters. But even more specifically, Hiss is not just a city person, but a New Yorker, and almost all of the examples that he uses to make his points are from New York City. This is fine for New Yorkers, but if you are not very familiar with New York neighborhoods and landmarks, his examples don't carry a strong resonance. To really make this book approachable by wider audiences, it would have been great for him to branch out to other cities like San Francisco, Minneapolis, or even Boston, which he may have visited once or twice. The adage goes "Write what you know," and Hiss apparently took this to heart.
Topics covered in part one include: simultaneous perception, a sort of intuitive sixth sense that people use to feel their links to their surroundings (as when people find their way through a crowded rail terminal without bumping into others); connections, and how design elements can resonate with people or not; possibilities of planning, and tools for exploring the sensual impact of proposed changes; and picking up the pieces- -examining why certain urban spaces don't work well and what can be done to fix them. Part two includes: working landscapes, or an in-depth description of the importance of the last working farm in New York City; highways, and how they connect city people to the suburbs and vacation spots; next generation- -limiting development so that city people will still have working landscapes to look at and visit; creating public value, or the importance of green spaces for city dwellers; and thinking regionally, which discusses developing urban green spaces and protecting working landscapes by clustering suburban development. The book closes with a short bibliography and it includes an index.
For me, some of the most interesting parts of the book were the short asides, bits of research that Hiss had worked into the text. For instance, I learned that researchers have found that parks should be within a 3 minute walk of residents, or they won't be used. Or, New York City restaurants don't serve water without a request because of habits learned during a 1965 drought. And I never dreamed that there was a working farm, zoned for agriculture in Queens. But I wanted so much more from this book than these factoids. Some of Hiss's ideas were quite interesting at the outset, but made no connections to me, since I have never been to New York City, nor do I have any interest in visiting it. The book had a lot of potential, as was clear in the introduction, but I wanted to learn more about humans' connection to natural places, wild landscapes and country villages, and not just those found on Long Island within 50 miles of the city. In his introduction, it sounded like Hiss meant to comment on the environment at large, rather than just the New York City environment. Perhaps a broader choice of examples (and even including some truly rural or even wild places) might have the points stick.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
GREAT BOOK ON PLACE, FROM RURAL TO CITY, May 24, 2011
This review is from: The Experience of Place: A New Way of Looking at and Dealing With our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside (Paperback)
This is a great book that we read in a class on The Experience of Place. Right up there with Walden Pond (but to me less boring) Hiss takes you through urban and rural landscapes, and talks about how place changes us and how we change places. A terrific non fiction book and a great read too. I especially love the chapters on Times Square and Grand Central Station, but the pieces on Prospect park and the working farm out on Long Island are amazing too. Hiss was a staff writer for The New Yorker for years and I've always admired his work, but this one's my favorite.
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