Through magazine articles and through his previous book, The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler has become one of the foremost decriers of the blighted urban landscape of the United States. Now, in this new sequel to the earlier book, Kunstler moves from description to prescription. The villains, Kunstler says, are zoning laws, real estate taxes, modernist architecture, and, particularly, the automobile. The solutions include multi-use zoning districts, car-free urban cores, revised tax laws, Beaux-Arts design principles, and, in particular, the neo-traditionalist school of architecture and city planning known as "new urbanism." It's possible to disagree with some of Kunstler's conclusions--the hope that large numbers of commuters will give up their single-passenger vehicles for public transit downtown has been discredited in city after city--without abandoning his larger goal: a return to a saner urban geography and, with it, to a saner way of life.


From Publishers Weekly
In a slashing, fervent, practical, brilliant critique of the philosophy?or lack thereof?underpinning today's dismal American cities and isolating suburbs, Kunstler argues that our streets, malls, parks, civic buildings and houses frustrate innate psychological needs, violate human scale and thwart our desire to participate in the larger world. An architectural design critic (The Geography of Nowhere) and a novelist, he champions "new urbanism," an architectural reform movement dedicated to producing cohesive, mixed-use neighborhoods for people of widely different incomes, neighborhoods resembling U.S. towns prior to WWII. Using photos and line drawings throughout, he highlights numerous new urbanism-inspired projects around the country, from Seaside, a resort town on the Florida panhandle, to redevelopment schemes in Providence, Memphis, Columbus and Corning, N.Y. He also lashes what he considers the major obstacles to new urbanism-banks that make loans only to projects creating more suburban sprawl; stifling zoning laws; and a property-tax system that punishes builders of quality and "rewards those who let existing buildings go to hell." First serial to the Atlantic. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Kunstler hits the ground running in this sequel to his highly acclaimed Geography of Nowhere (LJ 5/1/93), which assailed in no uncertain terms the consumer wasteland that Americans now habitate. As in his previous work, Kunstler takes as his point of departure the insidious rise of the automobile as the first blow to the disintegration of our communities and moves toward proposals for restoring the civic dimension to our lives. He writes eloquently of the bitter legacy of slavery in forging today's urban black underclass and takes on the thorny, unsexy issues of zoning and property taxes. Kunstler has embraced the progressive philosophy of the "new urbanism," characterized by its sensitivity to building to human scale and demonstrated most effectively in the experiment of Seaside, Florida, designed by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Adres Duany. His text offers numerous analyses of urban form via diagrams, graphs, and charts, e.g., how a street should be designed. His book is a jolly rant of fiercely held personal convictions that is intended to provoke his readers to action. An essential purchase.?Thomas P.R. Nugent, New YorkCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Alexander Garvin
Kunstler's is the latest in a long line of polemics that employ colorful writing and vivid illustrations to decry the ugliness that pervades the American landscape.


From Booklist
In The Geography of Nowhere (1993), Kunstler, a novelist, ardent and perceptive "citizen-observer," and masterful rhetorician, began his study of why suburbs, neglected Main Streets, and squandered cities are so bereft of beauty. Here, he continues his critique of American architecture, culture, and values and, in the process, identifies the source of the malaise people experience in and around the hideous structures that make every suburb resemble every other suburb. This degradation of the public realm is, Kunstler vehemently declares, nothing less than the degradation of the common good. Leaving aside architectural issues for the moment, Kunstler launches into a provocative discussion of the consequences of becoming consumers rather than citizens, of abandoning the community for an addiction to television, and of the corporate colonization of cities and the countryside. After both riling and delighting the reader with his ire, brilliance, and candor, Kunstler returns to the subject of buildings and chronicles the quiet growth of New Urbanism, a smart and hopeful trend toward improving American life. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
A somewhat disjointed but still thought-provoking examination of the ways in which American cities and towns make us bad citizens. In The Geography of Nowhere (1993) Kunstler took on the blandness and monoculture of the American suburb. Here he extends his sometimes scattershot argument to remark that while suburbs are ``a profoundly uncivil living arrangement,'' our cities are increasingly remade as if to intentionally prevent the human interaction from which civil society grows. ``It is hard,'' he writes, ``to imagine a culture less concerned than ours with the things that make life worth living,'' like clean, tree-lined streets and self-contained neighborhoods. His argument is diffuse, sometimes unfocused, but Kunstler's call to reinvent our towns is nonetheless well taken. Along the way, he offers reports on communities attempting to fight back; analyzes the decline of the unzoned, multiple-use, Main Street in favor of compartmentalized residential, commercial, and industrial zones; looks at the segregation of the poor into housing projects that keep them from interacting with other social classes; and examines the advent of a modernist architectural aesthetic that says, he maintains, ``We don't care what goes on outside our building.'' Among the high points in a book full of good observations is a clear discourse on property taxes, as well as Kunstler's rant that since WW II we have become, ``by sheer inertia, a nation of overfed clowns, crybabies, slackers, deadbeats, sadists, cads, whores, and crooks.'' These are harsh words from a self-described old hippie, but Kunstler's attack on a society that seems bent on denying its problems is not at all unwelcome. Give this good book, which dreams of life ``in a nice town in a civilized country,'' to your local town planner. (b&w photos and line drawings, not seen) (First serial to the Atlantic) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Mike Weilbacher The Philadelphia Inquirer A deliciously wicked over-the-top nonfiction romp across the tortured terrain of suburban America. This book is a wonderful whack-on-the-side-of-the-head to an increasingly complacent country bent on turning everywhere into Nowhere.


Book Description
In his landmark book The Geography of Nowhere James Howard Kunstler visited the "tragic sprawlscape of cartoon architecture, junked cities, and ravaged countryside" America had become and declared that the deteriorating environment was not merely a symptom of a troubled culture, but one of the primary causes of our discontent. In Home from Nowhere Kunstler not only shows that the original American Dream -- the desire for peaceful, pleasant places in which to work and live -- still has a strong hold on our imaginations, but also offers innovative, eminently practical ways to make that dream a reality. Citing examples from around the country, he calls for the restoration of traditional architecture, the introduction of enduring design principles in urban planning, and the development of public spaces that acknowledge our need to interact comfortable with one another.


About the Author
James Howard Kunstler is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and is the author of eight novels. He now lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Home from Nowhere Kunstler explores the growing movement across America to restore the physical dwelling place of our civilization. Picking up where The Geography of Nowhere left off, Kunstler describes precisely how the American Dream of a little cottage in a natural landscape mutated into today's sprawling automobile suburb in all its ghastliness, and why "we are going to run shrieking from it to a better world." He locates in our national psychology the origin of Americans' traditional dislike for city life, and what this implies about our ability to get along with one another. Most important, Home from Nowhere offers real hope for a nation yearning to live in authentic places worth caring about. Kunstler calls for a wholehearted restoration of traditional architecture and town planning based on enduring principles of design. He declares that the public realm matters, and that it must be honored and embellished in order to make civic life possible. He argues that the idea of beauty must be readmitted to intellectual respectability. From Seaside on the Florida panhandle, a bold experiment to create a radically better form of land development, to the reclamation of inner city neighborhoods, Kunstler documents the movement to revive American communities and a shared sense of place - presenting the crisis of our landscape and townscape that is at the center of the debate about this nation's future.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In a slashing, fervent, practical, brilliant critique of the philosophyor lack thereofunderpinning today's dismal American cities and isolating suburbs, Kunstler argues that our streets, malls, parks, civic buildings and houses frustrate innate psychological needs, violate human scale and thwart our desire to participate in the larger world. An architectural design critic (The Geography of Nowhere) and a novelist, he champions "new urbanism," an architectural reform movement dedicated to producing cohesive, mixed-use neighborhoods for people of widely different incomes, neighborhoods resembling U.S. towns prior to WWII. Using photos and line drawings throughout, he highlights numerous new urbanism-inspired projects around the country, from Seaside, a resort town on the Florida panhandle, to redevelopment schemes in Providence, Memphis, Columbus and Corning, N.Y. He also lashes what he considers the major obstacles to new urbanism-banks that make loans only to projects creating more suburban sprawl; stifling zoning laws; and a property-tax system that punishes builders of quality and "rewards those who let existing buildings go to hell." First serial to the Atlantic. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Kunstler hits the ground running in this sequel to his highly acclaimed Geography of Nowhere (LJ 5/1/93), which assailed in no uncertain terms the consumer wasteland that Americans now habitate. As in his previous work, Kunstler takes as his point of departure the insidious rise of the automobile as the first blow to the disintegration of our communities and moves toward proposals for restoring the civic dimension to our lives. He writes eloquently of the bitter legacy of slavery in forging today's urban black underclass and takes on the thorny, unsexy issues of zoning and property taxes. Kunstler has embraced the progressive philosophy of the "new urbanism," characterized by its sensitivity to building to human scale and demonstrated most effectively in the experiment of Seaside, Florida, designed by Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Adres Duany. His text offers numerous analyses of urban form via diagrams, graphs, and charts, e.g., how a street should be designed. His book is a jolly rant of fiercely held personal convictions that is intended to provoke his readers to action. An essential purchase.-Thomas P.R. Nugent, New York

Kirkus Reviews

A somewhat disjointed but still thought-provoking examination of the ways in which American cities and towns make us bad citizens.

In The Geography of Nowhere (1993) Kunstler took on the blandness and monoculture of the American suburb. Here he extends his sometimes scattershot argument to remark that while suburbs are "a profoundly uncivil living arrangement," our cities are increasingly remade as if to intentionally prevent the human interaction from which civil society grows. "It is hard," he writes, "to imagine a culture less concerned than ours with the things that make life worth living," like clean, tree-lined streets and self-contained neighborhoods. His argument is diffuse, sometimes unfocused, but Kunstler's call to reinvent our towns is nonetheless well taken. Along the way, he offers reports on communities attempting to fight back; analyzes the decline of the unzoned, multiple-use, Main Street in favor of compartmentalized residential, commercial, and industrial zones; looks at the segregation of the poor into housing projects that keep them from interacting with other social classes; and examines the advent of a modernist architectural aesthetic that says, he maintains, "We don't care what goes on outside our building." Among the high points in a book full of good observations is a clear discourse on property taxes, as well as Kunstler's rant that since WW II we have become, "by sheer inertia, a nation of overfed clowns, crybabies, slackers, deadbeats, sadists, cads, whores, and crooks." These are harsh words from a self-described old hippie, but Kunstler's attack on a society that seems bent on denying its problems is not at all unwelcome.

Give this good book, which dreams of life "in a nice town in a civilized country," to your local town planner.