Sprawl: A Compact History [Hardcover]

Robert Bruegmann (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226076903 | ISBN-13: 978-0226076904 | Publication Date: November 1, 2005 | Edition: 1

As anyone who has flown into Los Angeles at dusk or Houston at midday knows, urban areas today defy traditional notions of what a city is. Our old definitions of urban, suburban, and rural fail to capture the complexity of these vast regions with their superhighways, subdivisions, industrial areas, office parks, and resort areas pushing far out into the countryside. Detractors call it sprawl and assert that it is economically inefficient, socially inequitable, environmentally irresponsible, and aesthetically ugly. Robert Bruegmann calls it a logical consequence of economic growth and the democratization of society, with benefits that urban planners have failed to recognize.

In his incisive history of the expanded city, Bruegmann overturns every assumption we have about sprawl. Taking a long view of urban development, he demonstrates that sprawl is neither recent nor particularly American but as old as cities themselves, just as characteristic of ancient Rome and eighteenth-century Paris as it is of Atlanta or Los Angeles. Nor is sprawl the disaster claimed by many contemporary observers. Although sprawl, like any settlement pattern, has undoubtedly produced problems that must be addressed, it has also provided millions of people with the kinds of mobility, privacy, and choice that were once the exclusive prerogatives of the rich and powerful.

The first major book to strip urban sprawl of its pejorative connotations, Sprawl offers a completely new vision of the city and its growth. Bruegmann leads readers to the powerful conclusion that "in its immense complexity and constant change, the city-whether dense and concentrated at its core, looser and more sprawling in suburbia, or in the vast tracts of exurban penumbra that extend dozens, even hundreds, of miles-is the grandest and most marvelous work of mankind."

“Largely missing from this debate [over sprawl] has been a sound and reasoned history of this pattern of living. With Robert Bruegmann’s Sprawl: A Compact History, we now have one. What a pleasure it is: well-written, accessible and eager to challenge the current cant about sprawl.”—Joel Kotkin, The Wall Street Journal
 
“There are scores of books offering ‘solutions’ to sprawl. Their authors would do well to read this book.”—Witold Rybczynski, Slate

(20051107)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After 70 years of suffering the slings and arrows of academic criticism, suburban life finally finds a compelling defender in Bruegmann. A professor of art history and urban planning at the University of Illinois–Chicago, Bruegmann demonstrates that urban sprawl is a natural process as old as the world's oldest cities, wherein large metropolises reach a point of maturity and those with financial means escape the congestion and high prices of city life. What has changed over the past century, the author says, is that an increasing number of citizens have achieved the financial means to participate in what was once an exclusive luxury of the wealthy. Bruegmann acknowledges that the effects on cities are not always positive, but he also demonstrates that many of the criticisms of suburban sprawl—e.g., that it is culturally deficient and environmentally noxious—are greatly exaggerated and ignore the very real benefits sprawl offers in terms of privacy, mobility and choice. With his disdain for doomsday predictions and his disregard for the academic consensus, Bruegmann's thorough analysis is sure to be controversial, but a shot of controversy ought to do the field, and public dialogue about it, some good. 25 b&w illus., 5 maps.
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Review

"After 70 years of suffering the slings and arrows of academic criticism, suburban life finally finds a compelling defender in Bruegmann. A professor of art history and urban planning at the University of Illinois–Chicago, Bruegmann demonstrates that urban sprawl is a natural process as old as the world''s oldest cities, wherein large metropolises reach a point of maturity and those with financial means escape the congestion and high prices of city life. What has changed over the past century, the author says, is that an increasing number of citizens have achieved the financial means to participate in what was once an exclusive luxury of the wealthy. Bruegmann acknowledges that the effects on cities are not always positive, but he also demonstrates that many of the criticisms of suburban sprawl—e.g., that it is culturally deficient and environmentally noxious—are greatly exaggerated and ignore the very real benefits sprawl offers in terms of privacy, mobility and choice. With his disdain for doomsday predictions and his disregard for the academic consensus, Bruegmann''s thorough analysis is sure to be controversial, but a shot of controversy ought to do the field, and public dialogue about it, some good."--Publishers Weekly

(Publishers Weekly 20051210)

"Almost compulsively contrarian."--Alan Ehrenhalt, Governing Magazine

(Alan Ehrenhalt Governing Magazine 20051227)

"There are scores of books offering ''solutions'' to sprawl. Their authors would do well to read this book. To find solutions--or, rather, better ways to manage sprawl, which is not the same thing--it helps to get the problem right."--Witold Rybczynski, Slate

(Witold Rybczynski Slate 20051216)

"Urban elites and the left have for decades sa (Lawrence Solomon National Post 20060406)

"Largely missing from this debate [over sprawl] has been a sound and reasoned history of this pattern of living. With Robert Bruegmann''s Sprawl: A Compact History, we now have one. What a pleasure it is: well-written, accessible and eager to challenge the current cant about sprawl."--Joel Kotkin, The Wall Street Journal

(Joel Kotkin Wall Street Journal )

"Controversial and gleefully contrarian."--Kevin Nance, Chicago Sun-Times

(Kevin Nance Chicago Sun-Times )

"Sure to become a flash point in the debate over sprawl and is therefore well worth reading--even if the book tempts you to toss it out the window."--Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune

(Blair Kamin Chicago Tribune )

“[Sprawl] is a good and timely book, and I recommend it to anyone interested in cities or general patterns of human settlement. The book is meticulously researched, ambitious in scope, well reasoned, and enjoyable to read. It offers a carefully balanced, non-polemical overview of a subject much polemicized in recent times.”—Alex Krieger, Commonwealth

(Alex Krieger Commonwealth )

“To judge whether sprawl is a symptom of global capitalism at its most rampant and wasteful . . . technical arguments must be addressed. Bruegmann takes us through them lucidly and economically, neither flinching from nor getting mired in detail, and steering deftly between neo-con smugness and liberal anguish. These qualities make Sprawl a textbook for our times.”—Andrew Saint, London Review of Books

(Andrew Saint London Review of Books )

"If you have not read Sprawl: A Compact History, drop everything, obtain a copy and read it. It is the most important book on the American landscape since Jane Jacobs'' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Do not be deceived. Sprawl is as much about cities as it is about suburbs; as much about England, France, Germany, and Russia as it is about the United States; and as much about the early 21st century exurb as it is about 19th century slums or ancient Rome. It succeeds as a deeply illuminating work because of Robert Bruegmann''s unique position among urbanists: He combines an insistence on looking at what is actually on the landscape with an encyclopedic knowledge with the literature on cities. The result is a keen observer able to identify striking relationships. . . . . You may think you know this material. Be assured--once you read this book you will be amazed how little you truly understood about the subject."—Alexander Garvin, Urban Design Review
 

(Alexander Garvin Urban Design Review )

"This is a book that a geographer should have written. Scholarly, yet accessible to a wide audience, it treats an important subject that is both controversial and inherently spatial. . . . Subtle and well-informed, [Sprawl] mounts a sustained critique of a set of assumptions and arguments that dominate public and academic debate. For anyone with an interest in, or a practical engagement with, urban development issues, Sprawl is indispensable reading."—Richard Harris, Annals of the Association of American Geographers

(Richard Harris Annals of the Association of American Geographers )

"By asking tough questions, postulating rational responses, and trying to separate fact from fiction, Sprawl may be the most intelligent critique of antisprawl reform in print. It is unquestionably a book to be read and debated."

(Martin Zimmerman Preservation )

"[Sprawl] is a very good and timely book, and I recommend it to anyone interested in cities or general patterns of human settlement. The book is meticulously researched, ambitious in historic scope, well reasoned, and enjoyable to read. It offers a carefully balanced, non-polemical overview of a subject much polemicized in recent times."

(Alex Krieger Harvard Design Magazine )

"The clarity of writing . . . makes the book a pleasure to read. [Bruegmann] is tough on ecologists, public trnsportation supporters, planners . . . critics of capitalism, and anyone who cannot accept that suburbs are where most people want to live."

(David Dunster Architectual Review )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226076903
• ISBN-13: 978-0226076904
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Bruegmann is an historian of architecture, landscape and the built environment. He received his BA from Principia College in 1970 and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. In 1977 he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is currently University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning. He has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia College of the Arts, MIT and Columbia University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed the way I look at "sprawl.", March 1, 2006

By 

A. Pagano (Harrisburg, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sprawl: A Compact History (Hardcover)

I suppose I am one of those "elites" that Robert Bruegmann writes about in "Sprawl: A Compact History." I was born and raised in New York City. I grew up riding public transit and shopping at local mom n' pop stores. I watched many of my relatives leave the big city for greener pastures, and I noticed what a pain it was to go visit them on holidays because of the traffic. My parents refused to buy into the suburban lifestyle and stayed in the city. Even though my life and career path took me away from my beloved city, I have always tried to reside in the more urban parts of whatever area I happened to live. The suburbs never appealed to me, so naturally I was drawn to all of the anti-sprawl rhetoric and it all seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Bruegmann's book has changed that.

"Sprawl: A Compact History" might appear to be "pro-sprawl," but to dismiss the book out of hand because of this is to miss much of the point. Bruegmann does a great job explaining some things that probably should be obvious: sprawl is not new, there are lots of appealing aspects of sprawl (even for city dwellers) and it's not going away. He discusses the history of what most people would consider sprawl in places as far flung as Chicago, Paris and Tokyo and demonstrates that it was going on for a long time before anybody called it "sprawl" and decided it was bad. He notes that the existence of sprawl does not necessarily mean the death of great cities. He tackles many of the prevailing anti-sprawl arguments including the idea that sprawl causes congestion and ruins the environment. The point is not to say that sprawl is good and should be encouraged but rather to say that sprawl is not all bad and we should focus on what can be done to mitigate the negative side effects instead of trying to reverse long-established settlement patterns. In that respect he does an excellent job.

Does this mean that Bruegmann has turned me into a wannabe minivan-driving soccer dad with 2.1 kids and a yard with a white picket fence? Of course not. I have always been, and will continue to be, a city boy at heart. Bruegmann has given me reason to rethink how I feel about modern-day suburbia. Before this book I would drive through the suburbs thinking "Ugh! How could anyone want to live in this drab, boring, soulless environment?" After reading this book I now think "Boy, I'm really glad all these people live out here so I can afford my nice little townhouse in the middle of the city on my modest salary."

72 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not tremendously persuasive, June 12, 2006

By 

Michael Lewyn (Forest Hills, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sprawl: A Compact History (Hardcover)

The most seemingly innovative part of Bruegmann's book is his attempt to create a history of sprawl. His basic argument runs as follows: something vaguely resembling sprawl happened in ancient Rome and 18th-century Europe, therefore sprawl will forever be with us, therefore sprawl is unstoppable.

Bruegmann's argument fails because is that it totally ignores differences of degree. There is an enormous difference between

(1) a region where sprawl is just one lifestyle option among many and you can live an auto-free life in a city or a streetcar suburb (e.g. most of the United States in the 1920s, the NYC region today, and much of the rest of the world today)
and
(2) a place where buses stop running at rush hour and you need a car to be a functional member of society (e.g. some Sun Belt cities and most small towns).

It seems to me that situation (1) is indeed normal in an affluent society; situation (2) requires decades of bad public policies.

Moreover, Bruegmann makes concessions that eviscerate his argument. On the one hand, he implies that sprawl is inevitable in an affluent society. On the other, he admits that many metro areas have grown more compact in recent decades, and that cities are beginning to gentrify. (I suspect that he was not quite sure whether he wanted to be balanced or to write a pro-sprawl polemic; sometimes he leans in one direction, other times not).

His attempt to deny government's involvement in sprawl is sometimes a bit silly. In response to the argument that government-funded highways spread sprawl by making it easier to live in suburbs, he responds: "federal spending today goes more heavily per capita to central cities than to suburbs, primarily because of the enormous price tag of social security payments, which go primarily to an older population that remains disproportionately in the central cities."

First of all, this "analysis" is factually questionable: many cities actually have a slightly smaller over-65 population than their suburbs. (For example, in Chicago, where Bruegmann lives, 10.3% of city residents are over 65, as opposed to 11.3% of all metro residents). Second, highways affect where people live by making suburbs more convenient, while social security benefits benefit a suburban retiree as much as an urban retiree. (I suspect that they are most useful for whoever lives in a low cost of living area where your money goes farther- which means cities in some parts of the United States, suburbs in others).

Worst of all are the constant attacks against anyone who dares criticize the sprawl machine. He constantly attacks sprawl critics as "elites." This sort of "argument" exemplifies the ad hominem fallacy- attacking the person instead of the argument.

His attacks are as hypocritical as they are illogical; he brags about avante-garde architects who see "the spatial and ecological richness" of sprawl, and ignores the fact that a "road lobby" of construction companies and real estate interests generously funds politicians who favor suburban development and sprawl-generating expressways. It seems to me that these media star architects or large corporations are just as much of an "elite" as the environmentalists Bruegmann villifies.

Bruegmann's substantive discussion of the vices of sprawl is, by contrast, occasionally useful. Where the data is uncertain, he (occasionally) says so; for example, he correctly suggests that there is no way to know whether more compact development would reduce fuel consumption enough to affect global warming, or how much of an effect sprawl has on taxes and spending.

But even in this part of the book, Bruegmann sometimes cannot resist the temptation to overreach: for example, he writes that "cause of [auto-induced air] pollution was neither sprawl nor the automobile itself, but, rather, the inefficient fuel source it used." Of course, the "inefficient fuel source" only pollutes if it is actually placed in an automobile, and if the automobile is actually driven- both of which happen more often under sprawl.

77 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars clear thinking on a fuzzy subject, November 21, 2005

By 

Robert Burnham (Hales Corners, Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sprawl: A Compact History (Hardcover)

This is a superb book on a subject that raises a lot of passions. I enjoyed many parts of it, not least the sections where Bruegmann discusses the (suspect) motives of those who go apoplectic over the very idea of sprawl.

(Spoiler alert: their hostility is an affluence-based elitism that can gain a hearing only during economic good times.)

Bruegmann's style is highly readable, but what makes this book excellent are three well-done things.

First, he grounds his argument in historical perspectives, which completely demolish the oft-heard rants that American suburbia is a social, economic, and esthetic horror unique in human history.

Second, Bruegmann brings a lot of accurately handled numbers to bear on the core question of populations and settlement densities, both current and historical. And he footnotes where you can chase them down yourself.

As a corollary to the above, he shows how few anti-sprawl polemics show any understanding of population dynamics, or even how cities actually work in the real world, as opposed to cherished myths, mostly leftist.

Third, he nails perfectly the fact that anti-sprawl sentiment - like anti-WalMart sentiment - always boils down to thinly disguised class prejudice.

(Funny, isn't it, that you never hear complaints about WalMart or suburbia from blue-collar families, or those for whom a move to the 'burbs means a step up in living standards.)

Negatives? I would have liked more illustrations - maps, diagrams, photos, etc. - especially in the historical sections. But those provided do the job perfectly well.

This is a great book that will attract a lot of criticism, rants, and negative comments. But no one with an opinion on sprawl can afford not to read it.

Bruegmann's bottom line on sprawl? It began with the first human settlements, and won't end until cities themselves cease to exist - or humans stop being human.