Recommended Reading: Last Harvest

I confess that this post is filled with gushing praise, but once you have read the author's work, I am sure that his writing will elicit at least a murmur of approval.

I wasn't sure where to start learning about urban planning other than what I found on wikipedia.org. But one day I was poking around Borders and I came across the book, Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville by Witold Rybczynski. The concept intrigued me. Mr. Rybczynski followed the process of a residential subdivision in rural Pennsylvania (he teaches at UPenn School of Design) and what can happen from the time a developer sets his or her sights on a piece of land to the sign that says "coming soon" until people move into the new houses and beyond.

Mr. Rybczynski's writing is both well-informed and accessible. He paints well-fleshed out (pun intended) portraits of the different people involved in this process, but spares no fools gladly. When one person begins to nitpick decisions and design schemes to the point of simply being obstinate, there is an air of Mr. Rybczynski wryly thinking said person doth protest too much without condemning or humiliating said person. He also shows the human side of the developers, conveying both their desire for a profit and their fear that their unique business vision may not materialize the way that they hoped.

The development in question tries to apply new urbanist principles, with mixed results.

The writing is not plagued with academic jargon nor does it feel like it is dumbed down for non-planning professionals. Mr. Rybczynski writes to inform and his style is descriptive but succinct.

I honestly had no idea about suburban development before I read this book. I had a vague idea that somebody or some nameless corporation bought land, from who, unknown, and then started building houses. Often times I would be driving by an empty field and then a few months later, it felt like, there were houses erected and I thought where did they come from? I was also unclear what roles an architect, a developer, and a contractor played in residential development. Sometimes I thought they were all the same people. This is what you get when you study da Vinci and Damien Hirst instead of something vaguely more practical. I can spot a Corbusier or a Mies van der Rohe at twenty paces. Architects, I know. Construction processes, sometimes fuzzy.

Suburban development shows no signs of stopping (a summary of why so many people live in the suburbs vs. the cities is forthcoming on this blog). But it doesn't mean that we are doomed to a world of cookie-cutter suburbs. New urbanism offers a viable alternative to a Stepford-like community. The question remains though, who is willing to literally buy into the concept?

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely interested in how residential development decisions are made. Or for anyone who is interested in new urbanism. (I would also recommend checking out wikipedia's site on new urbanism for more on that subject.)

In addition, Mr. Rybczynski is a brilliant critic. I told you there would be gushing. He also writes for slate.com and his work there is equally excellent. I would highly recommend his piece on the suggestion that the rehabiliation of New Orleans follow in the footsteps of Denver's Stapleton development, which is a community that has adopted some new urbanist principles. http://www.slate.com/id/2148311/

Or frankly any of his other pieces on their site or elsewhere. His eulogy for Jane Jacobs is touching. He has also written several other books and for many other publications including the NY Times, Time, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker. Unlike some professors whose work you have to read with a can of Red Bull in order to stay awake, Professor Rybczynski's work is enlightening without being demanding.

As I don't want to oversell this, you can also read reviews of this book on amazon.com