The Geography of nowhere
by James Howard Kunstler · first published 1993
78% recommend19% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Accessible critique of car-centered American suburbs, zoning, and modern architecture, explaining how the built environment came about and why it feels broken; suits readers curious about walkable, human-scale cities.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…to loneliness), when you see statues of children playing and not actual children playing. Further reading/viewing: James Howard Kunstler: The ghastly tragedy of the suburbs James Howard Kunstler: Geography of Nowhere The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing Streets for People: A Primer for Americans Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee…
on “Why Loneliness Matters in the Social Age” ↗City planning in North America always makes me think of Kunstler. I saw him speak at the Winnipeg Art Gallery years ago about peak oil, and bought his book The Geography of Nowhere (http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Man-Made-La...). That book completely opened up my thinking about how the elements in a city relate to each other, and how community and economic activity…
on “The sorry state of neighbourhood design in America: a mother writes” ↗…to improve the environment is to build more of it and no demand or price increase will do that because, as I mentioned, it's illegal. I recommend "The High Cost of Free Parking" by Dr. Shoup, and "The Geography of Nowhere" by Kunstler if you want to understand more.
on “Diamonds Are Bullshit” ↗…flourishes or motifs. They share only size and a brutal ostentation intended only to say, "I have money, and taste be damned." The best exposition I know on the suburban blight AKA McMansions is "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler.
on “Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts” ↗…around the bush quite a bit. The reality is that the architectual establishment is largely responsible for destroying the aesthetic inheritance in the west. Kunstler lays this out for the layman in "Geography of Nowhere". It was a confluence of events: the architectual establishments hatred of traditionalism and regional forms, combined with the corporate elites love of the inexpensive, anti-skilled labor, massed man…
on “Devil’s Haircut” ↗…Walmart, but at substantially greater cost/risk. When efficiency/safety becomes primary among your desiderata, variety and diversity will suffer. This is the exact conundrum covered well in Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere" which bemoaned the social cost arising from city/village design that was optimized to serve too narrow a set of priorities, thereby eliminating opportunity to experience and share common spaces in more…
on “Why Every City Feels the Same Now” ↗> think European cities are just "lucky" that they've mostly been built when cars weren't a thing yet, and also organically grew over much longer timespans. You should give Howard Kunstler‘s The Geography of Nowhere and Duany, et al.‘s Suburban Nation a read. (There are other good ones, too). They’d readily dispel the timing notion you suggest. Rather this bland outcome is clearly from adopting civil engineering…
on “On Leaving California and the Silicon Valley” ↗For anyone interested in these topics and how they developed, James Howard Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere [1] is an informative, if sad, read. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125313.The_Geography_of_...
on “We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship” ↗It's the cause of so many issues in America (physical, mental, social). A great book on the utterly broken build environment in North America is "The Geography of Nowhere": https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125313.The_Geography_of_... Also, people forget - walkable doesn't just mean "somewhere you can walk" - I means you can walk to activities of daily living (groceries,…
on “Lack of Walkability in the US is destroying mental health” ↗…more critical and very thoughtful (if somewhat vengeful) look at peak oil and what it implies, see The Long Emergency and A World Made by Hand, both by James Kunstler. His book on suburban blight, The Geography of Nowhere, is also fascinating. http://kunstler.com/
on “Twenty Dollars Per Gallon: How the rising price of oil will change our lives” ↗I agree. If you get a chance, James Howard Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere" is an interesting read about this and other travesties of modern architecture and infrastructure.
on “Ask HN: If you could 'reinvent' anything what would it be?” ↗See also: "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Howard Kunstler. "The American highway is now like television, violent and tawdry. The landscape it runs through is littered with cartoon buildings and commercial messages. We whiz by them…
on “Did highways cause suburbanization?” ↗Kunstler's "The Geography of Nowhere" (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125313.The_Geography_of_N...) examines this issue in depth. Excellent read.
on “The sorry state of neighbourhood design in America: a mother writes” ↗You would really like Geography of Nowhere by James Kunstler, if you haven't read it already. http://kunstler.com/books/the-geography-of-nowhere/ Many small cities (including Jersey City, my home) will not allow commercial businesses to be built…
on “Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture” ↗…cities like traditional civilized peoples, instead of out in plastic suburbs with no commerce except retail chains and no social activities except TV, Evangelical megachurches, and sportsball. Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere might be worth reading on this subject.
on “Going faster doesn’t make you happier; you just drive farther” ↗