Does Smart Growth Preserve or Destroy Livability?

The Thoreau Institute is pleased to announce a new book on cities and smart growth: The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths: How Smart Growth Will Harm American Cities.

This book 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 shipping ($4.55 priority mail for books, $1 for CDs). 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.
• Contact the Thoreau Institute about discounts for larger quantities.

To order, email vec@ti.org or go to the Thoreau Institute order form.