About this title: This work tallies up the huge economic, social and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where they live and work and to build communities that are once again worthy of their affection.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Free Press
Date published: 1994-07-26
ISBN-13:9780671888251ISBN:0671888250
Description: Good. Front cover creased. Some wear around the edges. A nice copy. NOT an ex-library book; no publisher's remainder marks. Military (APO/FPO) orders are welcomed-Thank you for your service. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Free Press
Date published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780671888251ISBN:0671888250
Description: Good. 1994 Touchstone Press Reprint Softcover(Trade PB) Edition. Some wear to cover/tanning to page edges due to age, text clean with strong binding. Ships Fast! read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, NY
Date published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780671888251ISBN:0671888250
Description: Very Good with no dust jacket. 0671888250. Non-fiction, Sociolo 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall Fresh and clean with mellow interior. Inscribed and signed on fep by author: "To Caroylyn (crossed out), Sorry, Carolyn, James Howard Kunstler xxx/xxx-xxxx (telephone number) ". In this provocative analysis, Kunstler ( Blood Solstice ), a novelist and journalist, mixes memoir, historical essay and reporting to condemn the car-dependent suburbanization of America. Kunstler, who writes ably, casts a very wide ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Free Pr
Date published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780671888251ISBN:0671888250
Description: Very Good. The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape. Very good copy, shows signs of reading wear, and a reading crease on spine. read more
Description: New. In this "eminently relevant and important book" (Library Journal), the author traces the evolution of America's landscape, where every place looks like no place in particular, and where accommodating the automobile jeopardizes the individual and the... read more
"The Geography of Nowhere is a disturbing and often hilarious look at the loss of community brought about by car culture, mass-production, and the endless suburbanization of America they brought on.
I found that it articulated much of the malaise and vague horror I experience when visiting suburbs, strip malls, Barrie, Ontario's Golden Mile, box stores, and mothballed downtowns, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Kunstler's argument is built on a personal preference first, and sound premises second. My experience with suburbanites is that they like it, and they think there's nothing wrong.
That attitude is, unfortunately, the future. Still, this book is a subversive and interesting look at the unquestioned car culture we're caught in."
"Although the author makes some good points in his yearning to return cities to proper functionality, that is with people as the focus of life, he fails to see the importance of private productive property and the role of family in accomplishing his goals. The author instead blames many of America's woes on the car. Throughout the book he proclaims how the car has ruined America and how the American city or town will never be "home" until the car is removed from the equation. Add this to the sniping at religion and Ronald Reagan and the author's main point of the ugliness of the modern city is lost. The ideas of recovering the small, local, and intimate are ideas worth sharing, and are worth further incorporation into the distribuist worldview."
"The history of the poor design of American cities (from planning to architecture), its ties to the car, and where we go from here. An important, engagingly-written book. A book that will definitely elicit reactions, it was an excellent read but also has its problems.
Kunstler kept asserting his own aesthetic as non-arbitrary and the same one that all Americans have somewhere deep inside of them. Of course, you CAN say categorically that certain designs are more practical or bring about certain effects, but to simply the appearance of one thing is superior to that of another is unhelpful.
On a related not, he ignores the affection and nostalgia that some of us brought up in this landscape have for it. I genuinely like the feeling of driving a clunker along a highway to a Waffle House; or drinking in an overgrown, underused parking lot; or walking along a road that is definitely not meant for pedestrians. I'll admit that these tastes have little to do with how cities should be planned, but he acts like everyone hates (or would hate if they weren't unobservant, brainwashed imbeciles) the current American landscape and yearns only for the dense, quaint towns of the Old World.
All that said, I'm almost 100% on board with this manifesto, but maybe less so with its delivery."
'Born in 1948, I have lived my entire life in America's high imperial moment. During this epoch of stupendous wealth and power, we have managed to ruin our greatest cities, throw away our small towns, and impose over the countryside a joyless junk habitat which we can no longer afford to support. Indulging in a fetish of commercialized individualism, we did away with the public realm, and with nothing left but our private life in our private homes and private cars, we wonder what happened to the spirit of community. We created a landscape of scary places and became a nation of scary people.'
Try to read this book and have any love for this country! Though I now have a deeper love for livable pockets like the IC."
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