[.ca] How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken (ISBN 0292752407)

engaging, diverse, and open-ended:
Written in a lively and well-researched journalistic style, this book essentially lays down the pieces of a much larger puzzle that the reader must solve for him/herself. As other reviewers have mentioned, it does not offer many concrete solutions and it does not pretend to have easy answers. Instead, it is a far-reaching look at urban spaces, ranging from the new town of Celebration, Florida to the progressive and inspiring city of Portland, Oregon. Marshall also presents an intelligent and logical criticism of New Urbanism, which offers less satisfying and holistic solutions than its descendant, the SmartGrowth movement. Overall, this is an eye-opening, passionate, and highly readable book on the nuances of urban life and planning in contemporary America.

Good introduction to understanding forces that shape cities:
Many recently published books have been devoted to the plight of Urban sprawl. How Cities Work is a recommended addition. Clear, concise and to the point it establishes a solid perspective from which to view the choices that we have made in how we choose to live. The book begins by asserting that the factors that shape any city are a combination of its Transportation, Economics and Politics. After creating a framework for understanding these factors the book presents a critique of the so-called "New Urbanism". Marshall chooses none other than Disney's Celebration in Orlando Florida as his case study for the New Urbanism movement. Contrasting the Potemkin-like Celebration with neighboring Kissimmee, Marshall examines the forces that shaped each. The history of Kissimmee, complete with its ups and downs, demonstrates the workings of an authentic city. Celebration, in comparison, shows itself to be all style and little substance. Cities don't "just happen". It wasn't the simply the car or modern technology that shaped how we live today. Rather, it was the integration of the three forces of Transportation, Economics and Politics. The car is only as good as the roads that get built through government funding and a city's growth is shaped by the politics of zoning boards. The history of the last 50 years has shown that we have chosen a centrifugal direction for these forces. From general neglect of mass transportation to the emergence of restrictive covenants, we've chosen a path that has lead us to the creation of communities that serve to segment and isolate rather than bring together. While Marshall's remedies, especially his penchant for generally left-wing approaches to social policy, may sometimes miss the mark, his book offers an excellent framework from which to approach the task of remaking our cities into much more livable places.

Escaping the car:
How do cities work? According to Alex Marshall, the three factors that determine city form are transportation, economics, and politics. Whether or not you end up convinced, I think he gives a good argument. Marshall believes that cities serve primarily economic functions. They are builders of wealth. But transportation is the crucial element that determines whether a city gets dense and communal, or turns into suburban sprawl. Economics determines how the city grows, but only after the infrastructure is laid out. This infrastructure then, is not laid out through market processes. Because they are public goods, it is politics that determines what kind of transportation network is built, whether roads and freeways, or rails and subways. The latter set, Marshall argues, is necessary for healthy cities, and we should be aware that politics is the force driving transportation, because this means that we choose what kind of city we want through what kind of infrastructure we decide to build. Much of the book is devoted to studies of specific urban areas that have approached sprawl in different ways. It is also a critique of the New Urbanism movement, as Marshall argues it deals with superficial details while neglecting the underlying issues that form cities. He goes so far as to say that New Urbanism actually creates sprawl. Not all his analyses are always keen (some of his economic discussions are overly simple), and not all of his proposals may sound sensible. But his core argument is well worth thinking about. Marshall wants what I want: cities that are active and lively, dense and convenient, democratic and diverse. He brings attention to government and its role, the price we must pay for having community, and his pleas are intelligent and genuine. HOW CITIES WORK is part journalism, part instruction manual. It's a way to understand that perhaps we can still do something to change the landscape of suburban America.

Confused reader, not analysis:
A previous reviewer faulted the author for poor analysis. I don't think we read the same book. Throughout the book, the author repeatedly explains issues of economy, transportation, and the power of governmental choice in the formation of cities. He points out, as few new urbanists do, that cities exist for the economic advantage of its citizens, that government makes real decisions about what kind of transportation system is to be utilized, and that it is the transportation system that ultimately determines the form of regions. He effectively articulates that the functions of a city are innate and independent of the forms that city might take. To the author's credit, he clearly identifies his personal preferences for a developmental form that is transit oriented and dominated by urbanist forms. The book is easy to read, and its theories are clearly and repeatedly stated. Is the book correct? Who knows. The author, very ambitiously, attempts to get at the very basics of the existence of the city form, and I think he proffers thoughtful and compelling arguments.

Confused Analysis: The Problem with "How Cities Work":
Alex Marshall has written an entertaining description of his frustration with the current choices of many Americans to live in low density housing relying upon the freeway and arterial road systems. He describes his interaction with selected citizens of Portland, the Silicon Valley, Jackson Heights and Celebration and attempts from this "base" to extract the ultimate truths that underly what, to him, is a thoroughly unsatisfactory way of life. In many ways, his frustration is amusing, predictable, and entirely understandable: Americans do not agree, in general, that there is something inherently wrong with a single-family home in a nice location. It can be argued - although almost never is - that the genius of the post-industrial economic world is the flexibility of the highway system, which allows one and two job families to maintain their residential base, while tapping into changing economic opportunities. Marshall argues that tolerating the present situation - he admits that politicians support it - is the result of the "confusion" of those of us who do not see things his way. Indeed, he expresses surprise that people he iterviews in Celebration, a "New Urbanist" development that, curiously, he spends much of the book criticizing, like where they live and how it works. After reading the book, however, it is clear that the confusion is Marshall's. Only in a very few places in the book does he acknowledge the importance of the ebb and flow of the economy; at no point does the massive shifts in types and locations of jobs come into play. From his point of view, each city should build (without bothering to explain where the funds come from) fixed transportation systems which would allow the elimination of the freeways, thus putting "pressure" on the downtowns, thus forcing higher density. His interpretation of the success of the Portland area totally ignores the effects of the chip-making, lumber processing, or other economic issues, as well as the effects of geography and the remoteness of the location. Instead, he cites as the sole reason for Portland's favorable status the use of a Growth Boundry. Anyone who takes the time to drive around Portland quickly notices, however, that the same characteristics that he condemns elsewhere are evident in that area. Indeed, while many debate the issue, if there has been any effect of the Urban Growth Boundry, it can be argued to have artificially increased housing prices, a result Marshall correctly criticizes as unhealthy in the Silicon Valley. When all is said, however, I strongly recommend this book because of Marshall's candor and insight. He acknowledges - as no book I have seen does - that the same trends are evident in the European cities where the heavy hand of government is much more involved in laying out urban transit and placing barriers to home ownership. I have noted this, for example, in the Mannheim, Germany area where despite a truly outstanding wheel and spoke system(and cross urban rail system)it is obvious that the city is losing its middle class to suburban living.