This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America (Hardcover)

by Anthony Flint (Author) "A FEW YEARS AGO I was driving down to a story assignment in south-eastern Massachusetts, to the little town of Carver, which was up in..." (more)
Key Phrases: New Urbanism, New York, Little Elm (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With evidence growing regarding the impact of density on innovation and economic growth, Anthony Flint's excellent This Land couldn't come along at a better time. It's an essential read for those working to understand and build more vibrant and livable communities." -- Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class

"A revealing portrait of how America lives today. His trenchant chronicling of the emerging smart growth movement's challenge to the suburban sprawl ethos is a clarion call for a national conversation about how the country should grow." -- Ben Bradlee Jr., author and former Deputy Managing Editor of the Boston Globe

"Among the hundreds of books about metropolitan growth, This Land stands out as an extremely engaging and perceptive chronicle of the current state of the smart growth and new urbanist movements. Highlighting the fundamental American tension between individual and collective purposes, Flint compellingly articulates the challenges ahead." -- Ann Forsyth, Director, Metropolitan Design Center

"This important book is spot-on in its analysis of America's deepening land use problems and refreshingly upbeat in its account of win-win solutions arising around the country. Flint's fingertip knowledge of detail is especially to be admired." -- E. O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University

"Engaging, vivid and provocative work. Written with analytical rigor but also a crafty journalistic eye for the human-interest story that crystallizes an abstract theme, this book merits inclusion in any library." -- Library Journal

"A panoramic and extraordinarily up-to-date account of the struggle over how America builds." -- Philip Langdon, New Urban News

"This Land offers a provocative and insightful overview of the challenges of sprawl." -- Boston Globe

"Those who truly hate sprawl and want to fight back would be well advised to read this book." -- Audubon

"Well researched, well written... very personable and readable. Recommended for all readers." -- S. O'M, Northeastern Naturalist

"Flint provides a historical perspective on how we became a suburban nation... with the easy-flowing, narrative skill of a journalist." -- Lawrence Bluestone, Architecture Boston

Product Description

Despite a modest revival in city living, Americans are spreading out more than ever -- into "exurbs" and "boomburbs" miles from anywhere, in big houses in big subdivisions. We cling to the notion of safer neighborhoods and better schools, but what we get, argues Anthony Flint, is long commutes, crushing gas prices and higher taxes -- and a landscape of strip malls and office parks badly in need of a makeover.

This Land tells the untold story of development in America -- how the landscape is shaped by a furious clash of political, economic and cultural forces. It is the story of burgeoning anti-sprawl movement, a 1960s-style revolution of New Urbanism, smart growth, and green building. And it is the story of landowners fighting back on the basis of property rights, with free-market libertarians, homebuilders, road pavers, financial institutions, and even the lawn-care industry right alongside them.

The subdivisions and extra-wide roadways are encroaching into the wetlands of Florida, ranchlands in Texas, and the desert outside Phoenix and Las Vegas. But with up to 120 million more people in the country by 2050, will the spread-out pattern cave in on itself? Could Americans embrace a new approach to development if it made sense for them?

A veteran journalist who covered planning, development, and housing for the Boston Globe for sixteen years and a visiting scholar in 2005 at the Harvard Design School, Flint reveals some surprising truths about the future and how we live in This Land.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (April 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801884195
• ISBN-13: 978-0801884191
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #541,983 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flint provides a lucid account of the complex battle over sprawl in America, September 9, 2006

By	O. Paschke - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

'This Land' by Anthony Flint is written by a journalist in a journalistic style. The core of this book is devoted to the battle of ideologies over land use in America: the smart growth movement advocating for control on suburban growth, the new urbanists insisting on the need to rethink our zoning laws currently favoring inefficient sprawl, and property right advocates and lobbyists fighting to gain full control over what can be developed on their property. This story spanning over essentially half a century is told using a myriad of anecdotes and examples from all across America. One such story relates how land owners request compensations for lost revenues (equated to governmental takings) resulting from the restrictions on development outside urban growth boundaries. Flint remains critical and objective, avoiding an overt endorsement of anyone in particular. Many of the themes discussed in books such as `Suburban Nation' or `The Geography of Nowhere' are covered, but with a journalistic tone and restraint.

Beyond merely covering the familiar arguments, he suggests, somewhat surprisingly, that smart growth is itself a `conservative idea'. Our current growth practices are not truly a reflection of the free market; they are highly subsidized by way of highway investments and the costly expansion of public services by local governments (e.g. roads, sewers, schools, fire and police departments). Instead of building on brown sites and urban infills, cities expand on greenfields further and further away stretching tax dollars up to a point of imminent bankruptcy.

This book's strength is in providing a non-partisan account of the political and economical battles over land use in America. Its weakness may be an overabundance of short anecdotal stories found in the middle part of the book. Some suggestions are made in the very last chapter as to what can be done to improve our public space and reduce the wastefulness of our current growth practices. Those seeking a severe and incisive criticism of modern urbanism may be better served by reading `Suburban Nation'. However, this book presents the multitude of conflicting positions that other authors are essentially arguing for or against.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very balanced and insightful, September 6, 2006

By	Jonathan Davies (Ottawa, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I find Anthony Flint very balanced and insightful in this book. I like the fact that this book's author, in addition to explaining how and why sprawl came about in the first place, the drawbacks of sprawl, and the solutions to it, also explains the reasons why there is so much resistance to the alternatives to sprawl, and the solutions to that resistance.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Land Use pitched battles, July 10, 2006

By	G. Flint "concerned" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fascinating treatment of the burgeoning struggle of urban sprawl (now exurban sprawl) vs. planned development in 21st century America. Another "inconvenient truth, blending the source of the energy crisis, "green" concerns, local food production, and legal armageddon over eminent domain.
Lively writing from a former Boston Globe reporter.