New Geographies of the American West: Land Use and the Changing Patterns of Place (Orton Family Foundation Innovation in Place Series) Review

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New Geographies of the American West: Land Use and the Changing Patterns of Place (Orton Family Foundation Innovation in Place Series) ReviewIn 1971 Oregon's likable curmudgeon Governor, Tom McCall, gained national notoriety when he urged people to vist Oregon -- but to move on with all deliberate speed -- or go back to California.
Prof. William R. Travis is a kinder, gentler McCall. But the Oregon politician and the Colorado geographer have the same basic message. The secret of the West's success in drawing people to its mountains, deserts, rivers, and estuaries is not so much resources as "amenities." But will the West's seductive geography prove its undoing? McCall and Travis, a generation apart, share the fear the West will choke on its demographic success.
The short version of Professor Travis' argument is that he sees sprawl everywhere, and the cure for it is open natural land.
Travis sees the West as a complex of core cities, their suburban sprawl, then the menacing "exurbs," a scattering of resorts, and an enormous "gentrified" range. Travis' is fond of cities, though he shares little of the loathing for the suburbs so common among urban planners. Most of his dislike is for the exurbs, yet the gentrified range gets a pass from him. The resorts, he hopes, will morph into "micropolitan" areas. This neologism might fit places like Flagstaff or Yakima.
Travis' strategy for choking sprawl and exurbia is an amplified version of one-time Albuquerque Mayor David Rusk's regional government approach. But the darkside of this approach, in a region the size of the West, is [more] reliance on the Federal Government, that already owns most of the West anyway.
This is where Travis falls into the trap he so much wants to West to avoid. It is clear from any number of referenda, a drastic but definitive form of "bottom-up planning," that one of the West's major amenities, ranking with mountains, deserts, and open natural space, is the absence of government meddling. The Federal Government, from the Border Patrol to the Bureaus of Land Management and Indian Affairs does not inspire confidence. Travis uses sound logic, but bad politics, in suggesting that the Feds administer already suspect land use planning.
What I think Professor Travis needs is another book that takes on some of the friction development in the West faces. He is, I believe, far too optimistic about the West's water supply [p. 31], and he is almost silent with respect to tribal claims, and to the immigration ("undocumented Americans") issue, including Mexican state-sponsored irridentism. But, he is at Boulder.
Regardless, Professor Travis has a deep appreciation for the complexity of the West, is technically on the cutting edge of Geography, and, I suspect, has a lot more to say. Readers in this field should look forward to his next books.
New Geographies of the American West: Land Use and the Changing Patterns of Place (Orton Family Foundation Innovation in Place Series) OverviewReconciling explosive growth with often majestic landscape defines New Geographies of the American West. Geographer William Travis examines contemporary land use changes and development patterns from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and assesses the ecological and social outcomes of Western development.

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The Struggle for Modernism: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning at Harvard Review

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The Struggle for Modernism: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning at Harvard ReviewModernism in architecture is so closely identified with a handful of hero figures (like Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe) that we often forget that the real story behind its development is a complex and contentious one. In this wonderful and much-needed book, Anthony Alofsin deftly illustrates that the arrival of European architects in the U.S. in the 1930s cast a shadow over emerging progressive trends in American architectural design and education. At Harvard in particular, this led to an amnesia that convinced students and professors alike that it was Gropius who brought modern ideas to the Graduate School of Design when he began teaching there in 1937. "The Struggle for Modernism" shows clearly, though, that the kernels of these modern ideas were present in the Harvard design programs from their beginnings in 1900. It was not from the Bauhaus that Harvard developed its interdisciplinary approach to design that insisted on collaboration amongst architects, landscape architects, and city planners. Instead, it was Americans like Herbert Langford Warren, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., George Harold Edgell, and, most importantly, Joseph Hudnut who over decades created the influential and rigorous design programs. This is a fascinating and most welcome book that sheds much new light on a subject that many have incorrectly assumed was already well-understood. Highly recommended.The Struggle for Modernism: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning at Harvard Overview
A history of modernism in the teaching ofarchitecture, landscape architecture, and cityplanning at Harvard.
This remarkable volume tells the unique history of modernism as reflected in the teaching of architecture, landscape architecture, and city planning at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Tracing developments at the GSD, which was home from 1937 to 1952 of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, Anthony Alofsin reveals that America had initiated its own modern agenda before the arrival of the European modernist ideology. Filled with archival photographs and plans that have never been published before, this book will be of great interest to students and professionals in the fields of art, architecture, and design, as well as to architectural historians. 20 color and 250 black and white illustrations; plans

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Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Wiley Series in Sustainable Design) Review

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Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Wiley Series in Sustainable Design) ReviewHaving embarked on a sustainability plan without the aid or foresight of any type of guidebook or comprehensive strategy, I am extremely supportive of the effort that author Stephen Coyle has undertaken in compiling Sustainable and Resilient Communities. This book should be the "Read Me!" document for anyone looking to engage in sustainability planning efforts from a government or community perspective. It's not the first book that I've read on how to engage in sustainability efforts (honestly such titles are beginning to become "a dime a dozen"), but it is the first book that focuses on how to create an action plan to make a community more sustainable (rather than simply focusing on successful efforts in other areas). Coyle manages to provide realistic strategies that can easily be worked into the political context of almost any community without crossing into the fringe of developing technologies or antiquated reductionist themes.
Sustainable and Resilient Communities is broken down into 13 chapters which address the various facets of sustainability. The chapters are:
1.The Built Environments and Its Supporting Systems
2.The Process of Transformation
3.The Physical Built Environment
4.The Regulatory Environment
5.Transportation
6.Energy
7.Water
8.Natural Environment
9.Food Production/Agriculture
10.Solid Waste
11.Economics
12.Engagement and Education
13.Public Health
The first two chapters provide a solid assessment of the sustainability planning process and offer a prescriptive framework for how it can be implemented within a community. Chapter 2 also provides a robust breakdown of the process showing how to assemble potential stakeholders, how to effectively use those stakeholders, how to gain support from a broad segment of the community, and how to successfully implement a sustainability plan. The remaining chapters break down each of the specialty topics and provide case studies that demonstrate how the topics were successfully tackled.
Sustainable and Resilient Communities is a 404 page manual on how to create a sustainability plan. This is the manual that you should pass around your organization or civic group to learn how to manage the process and how to build support. I found it to be well-written and filled with a wealth of information. Coyle has done a superb job of assembling a group of experts well-versed in the subject matter presented.It doesn't take a singular or rigid approach to building a sustainability plan but instead shows how communities can create objectives that meet the needs of their citizens.
I found the book to be well illustrated with rational and relevant examples. The graphics and detailed examples from municipalities around the country are extremely useful in brainstorming approaches. The graphics are also appropriately placed to make the topics at hand more cogent. The book opens with a Foreword from Andrés Duany and continues with poignant articles by renowned experts in their respective fields.
If you're interested in sustainability plans or sustainability action plans or just creating sustainability indicators for your organization this book is an excellent place to start. It's targeted to those involved with government organization, but it's a good tool in the hands of a community activists or civic group. It would also be an excellent manual for organizations looking to approach sustainability internally.
Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Wiley Series in Sustainable Design) Overview
The ultimate step-by-step action plan guidebook for making communities resilient, resourceful, and healthy

Many of today's communities face an unprecedented struggle to adapt and maintain their environmental, economic, and social well-being in an era beleaguered by fiscal constraints, uncertainty about energy prices and supplies, rapid demographic shifts, and accelerated climate impacts. This step-by-step guidebook for urban planners and urban designers explains how to create and implement an actionable plan for making neighborhoods, communities, and regions more environmentally healthy, resource-conserving, and economically resilient. Sustainable and Resilient Communities delineates measures for repairing, retrofitting, and transforming our built environments and supporting systems-transportation, energy, water, natural environment, food production, solid waste, and economics-through:

Methods for assessing a community's key sustainability quotient

Deploying tools for establishing timely performance goals and metrics

Developing strategies for evaluating, selecting, and implementing 'high-leverage' interventions

Activating policies, codes, programs, plans, and practices, as well as monitoring and upgrading their performance

The book includes a range of targeted case studies, from New Orleans and South Carolina to Arizona and California, illustrating geographically diverse approaches for urban contexts large and small.
A resource for developing an ecological urbanism, Sustainable and Resilient Communities employs time-proven, broadly applicable strategies and actions that can be customized for specific environmental, energy, and economic conditions.

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