Potato City: Nature, History, and Community in the Age of Sprawl Review

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Potato City: Nature, History, and Community in the Age of Sprawl ReviewI must say this book took me by surprise. I borrowed it from an uncle via my mother who said it was a good book. Many times her opinions fail to inspire me to actually finish the book in question. But this book is truly a gem. It has it all, history, environment, natural history, ecology, and an underlying message on modern urban development.
This book focuses on North Branch, Minnesota, a town I have been connected to my entire life. It began as a small farming community in east central Minnesota, but today is one of the fastest growing outer ring suburbs in our state. This book chronicles the town's beginnings, its present, and projects its future. Potatoes were the reason this community was born, but the coming of dairy farming altered the soil chemistry and the potato industry passed into history.
The author does a splendid job recreating this history, but this is no mere history book. It covers the natural environment and how the community dealt with (and continues to deal with) growth. Sue Leaf offers warnings to developing this area without proper care for the land being developed. The local ecosystems are in jeopardy if true environmentalism is not fully integrated into development plans.
This book focuses on one former farming community but in reality it could be Anywhere, USA by just changing a few of the details. I recommend this book for history lovers, ecology or natural history lovers, urban planners (or any who face the threat or the prospect of development, or anyone interested in reading a darn good book.Potato City: Nature, History, and Community in the Age of Sprawl OverviewCatbirds and pocket gophers, bur oaks and bull snakes, bluestem grass and leopard frogs have populated the gently rolling prairies around Sue Leaf's midwestern farming community for centuries. A hundred years ago her town, located forty-five miles from the nearest city, shipped thousands of tons of potato starch across the country, stiffening the collars of working men. Today it has become one of America's fast-growing suburbs.As naturalist and biologist Sue Leaf watched her rural surroundings become a magnet for developers, she became curious about the history of the land. Before the freeway and the housing developments, before the farmers cultivated the fertile soil, what plants and animals called this place home? To her delight, Leaf discovered the oak savanna, a park-like ecosystem that supports abundant wildlife and soothes the human psyche with its quiet, open spaces. As she looked more closely, she found remnants of the savanna in her own yard, in the trees lining her quiet street, and in nearby preserved patches of prairie. In lyrical essays, Leaf traces the natural history of her community, offering rich details about the people who built this area, about its once prosperous farms, and about the oak trees and wildflowers and prairie animals native to this part of the country. By examining remnants of the past still visible in a place deeply affected by sprawl, Leaf reveals how to slow down, look carefully, and untangle the jumble of unnoticed clues that can enrich our daily lives."Leaf advises us all to discover our own communities' natural treasures before, through ignorance, we lose them." --Boston Sunday Globe"Leaf writes about the pace of sprawl, the loss of farmland and a way of life that seems like a dream or a place buried somewhere in our collective memory." --Los Angeles Times

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