Capture: Book, 'Home from nowhere'

From:John Montague Massengale <75047.1454@COMPUSERVE.COM> Captured at the URBANET mail-list


--------------- Forwarded Story --------------- 

Headline: NON-FICTION --
Wire Service: OTC (COMTEX Newswire)
Date: Fri, Aug 23, 1996

HOME FROM NOWHERE: Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-First Century

By James Howard Kunstler
Simon & Schuster, $24 (320p) ISBN 0-684-81196-0 

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. (Release October) 

PUBLISEHRS WEEKLY BOOK REVIEWS ARE UPDATED WEEKLY 

COPYRIGHT 1996 BY Cahners Publishing Company, a division of Reed Elsevier
Inc.

CINEMAN SYNDICATE VIA COMTEX
Copyright 1996

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