Does Smart Growth Preserve or Destroy Livability?
The Vanishing
Automobile and Other Urban Myths: How Smart Growth Will Harm American
Cities helps people understand and respond to so-called
smart-growth plans that threaten to increase urban congestion,
housing prices, and taxes while reducing urban open space. The
545-page book includes:
- Reviews of density, transit-oriented developments, prescriptive
zoning, and other smart growth prescriptions;
- The facts behind more than 70 smart-growth myths;
- Important statistics on urban mobility, highways, and transit;
- Original research on the effects of smart growth on livability;
- A close look at the anti-auto, anti-highway "congestion
coalition" that supports smart growth;
- A detailed review of the costs of smart growth in Portland,
Oregon;
- Case studies of many European and American cities;
- An alternative to smart growth that focuses on using incentives
to protect the American Dream.
"O'Toole is an articulate skeptic who marshals a formidable
array of facts and figures to argue against the major tenets of
smart growth. He lambasts planners' attempts to limit personal
freedom and contends that few Americans freely choose the 'smart-growth
lifestyle.' Planners who advocate smart growth to their communities
should know, understand, and be prepared to respond to this compelling
and well-documented dissent."
- The American Planning Association
Now Available
on CD!
The Vanishing Automobile is now available in both print
and CD formats and sells for $14.95 plus
$4 priority mail shipping for the book and $1 shipping for the CD. The CD includes the entire book in Acrobat format along with data, charts, updates, and other files relating to the book. Discounts for multiple-copies
are also available:
- Ten or more books or CDs are $12 each plus actual shipping
cost.
- Twenty-five or more books or CDs are $10 each plus shipping.
- One hundred or more books or CDs are $8 each plus shipping.
To order books or CDs, email the Thoreau Institute.
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