Blog and Book About Place, Sprawl, Community Planning
I just found this interesting blog, Where - "a blog about urban places, place-making and the concept of 'place.'" It's relatively new. I saw a link to it on BLDGBLOG. It's good. As much as I write about houses, and the need for better housing in America, the real truth is it's a macro problem we're facing. We don't just need better houses, we need better places. We need smarter cities, we need to tackle sprawl, we need to be able to access our jobs and communities by something other than automobiles, we need green spaces where we live and shop, and we need vital cities where people can live comfortably with higher population densities so we don't have to keep tearing up forests, farmland and coastal beauty.
Today's post on Where is particularly interesting to me. It's about Detroit, and I think it gives a great insight on the unusual dynamics of this city, and why for change to happen Detroit has to follow its own unique path to revitalization. I really enjoyed reading it. This is a blog I'll be watching.
By the way, I've been wanting to post about a great book I picked up a while ago. A Field Guide to Sprawl
You'll learn about and see aerial pics of "Zoomburbs," "Boomburbs," "Category Killers," LULUs," "Privatopias," "Ozoners," "Pods," "Edge Nodes," and more. I'd say I live in a combination "Low Density/Greenfield/Sitcom Suburb" (I hate to say that, but it's true). You won't have any problem recognizing the landscape depicted in this book all around you either, wherever you live in the USA. It's a fabulous and entertaining book with a critical message - planning the greater environment matters, and we're doing it all wrong.
Image credits - Where site and Amazon.com listing
