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The writer James Howard Kunstler believes that the American choice of suburban-oriented development was the "greatest misallocation of resources" in history. Hi

• bane 13y ago
  "...that we threw in the garbage after WW2..." I think this is a very salient point. I'm glad to see him focus on terrible urban design as well. Pre-WW2 public spaces and areas are beautiful wonderful places that people spend significant fractions of their yearly income and travel across the planet just to spend a few days in. The world really would be a better place if we followed what he's advocating here. I'm so heartened to see many new urban projects following this exact plan. http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/ http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/
  • mesaaz 13y ago
    Another good source on human-scale urban design is Nathan K. Lewis. He has a great set of postings on traditional cities. An interesting point is the surprising commonality of organic urban building throughout the world, with the exception of the US. His recipe is mass-transit, "really narrow streets," and mixed-zoning. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/tradcityarchive.html http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/tradcityarchive.ht...