What do you think?
Rate this book
A Field Guide to Sprawl
A visual lexicon of the colorful slang, from alligator investment to zoomburb, that defines sprawl in America.
Can you define edge node, boomburb, tower farm, big box, and parsley round the pig? Sprawl is hard to pin down and the terms change every day. This concise book defines the vocabulary of sprawl from alligator to zoomburb, illustrating fifty-one colorful terms invented by real estate developers and designers to characterize contemporary building patterns. Sixty-nine aerial photographs, each paired with a definition, convey the impact of development and provide verbal and visual vocabulary needed by professionals, public officials, and citizens to critique uncontrolled growth in the American landscape. This "devil's dictionary" of American building accompanies a critique of metropolitan regions organized around unsustainable growth, where sprawling new areas of automobile-oriented construction flourish as older neighborhoods are left to decline.
Can you define edge node, boomburb, tower farm, big box, and parsley round the pig? Sprawl is hard to pin down and the terms change every day. This concise book defines the vocabulary of sprawl from alligator to zoomburb, illustrating fifty-one colorful terms invented by real estate developers and designers to characterize contemporary building patterns. Sixty-nine aerial photographs, each paired with a definition, convey the impact of development and provide verbal and visual vocabulary needed by professionals, public officials, and citizens to critique uncontrolled growth in the American landscape. This "devil's dictionary" of American building accompanies a critique of metropolitan regions organized around unsustainable growth, where sprawling new areas of automobile-oriented construction flourish as older neighborhoods are left to decline.
128 pages, Paperback
First published July 17, 2004
2 people are currently reading
387 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
June 5, 2015
Everyone should read this book, if only to understand how the real estate industry, developers, and the growth-obsessed government totally screwed over the United States in the 20th century.
Really, this book perfectly identifies why I wanted to become a planner. So many mistakes were made, so many consequences pushed off onto the shoulders of minority populations, and so many negative changes to the daily life of America were caused by sprawl. For example:
The obesity epidemic? Sprawl. People drive instead of walking everywhere. People are encouraged to stay put, whether it be in their homes, at their restaurants, or at work.
Depression? Sprawl. Loneliness due to no social interactivity. Houses are built for privacy. Cars cut people off from each other.
High taxes? Sprawl. Infrastructure costs for suburban sprawl are unsustainable and supported by ever decreasing tax bases.
Stagnant wages? Sprawl. Any tax relief that could be spent on jobmakers or low/middle class are spent on building wider roads.
I could go on and on.
Really, this book perfectly identifies why I wanted to become a planner. So many mistakes were made, so many consequences pushed off onto the shoulders of minority populations, and so many negative changes to the daily life of America were caused by sprawl. For example:
The obesity epidemic? Sprawl. People drive instead of walking everywhere. People are encouraged to stay put, whether it be in their homes, at their restaurants, or at work.
Depression? Sprawl. Loneliness due to no social interactivity. Houses are built for privacy. Cars cut people off from each other.
High taxes? Sprawl. Infrastructure costs for suburban sprawl are unsustainable and supported by ever decreasing tax bases.
Stagnant wages? Sprawl. Any tax relief that could be spent on jobmakers or low/middle class are spent on building wider roads.
I could go on and on.
June 8, 2019
Interesting book. Pictures definitely give a different perspective. Wonder what cities are like today.
February 28, 2008
Ever wonder what kind of spatial imprint those big box stores (e.g. WalMart), highway/freeway interchanges, junkyards and tire recyclers make on the landscape? Here's your answer: A Field Guide to Sprawl. Someone trained and educated in a field such urban or environmental planning, geology, civil engineering, or any human-environmental interface field will have a deeper understanding of the effects and solutions for the landscapes photo-catalogued in this short book. Even the untrained, however, can see confusing and potentially damaging effects, both environmental and social. I do not think the author meant this to be a negative, raise-your-blood-pressure-and-start-on-a-rant book, as improvements and problem solutions are obvious to anyone who looks at these images, even without training in a planning or environmental field. Why shouldn't, for example, we use those huge flat building tops as either solar panel stations or plant trees, shrubs and grasses for carbon dioxide and energy reduction (cuts air conditioning needs in summertime and aids in heat retention in winter). The brief (less than a page) explanation for each image tells the story in a non-finger-pointing style with delightful and somewhat subtle ironic humor.
January 1, 2012
A quick read. This is a picture book of things you might see in a typical sprawling suburb, with some clever terminology. For example, a LULU is a "Locally Unwanted Land Use". This could refer to a landfill, prison or nuclear power plant. A "ball pork" is a stadium or arena paid for by the taxpayers but that benefits a rich owner. A TOAD is a "temporary, obsolete, abandoned or derelict site", such as a dead mall or factory.
September 25, 2007
This is the kind of book I buy without thinking twice. Starts out with an essay on sprawl, then morphs into a bunch of really cool aerial photographs of different types of sprawl, like "mall glut," "litter on a stick" (billboards), and "power center" (big box stores). The photographs of the housing developments are fascinating and disturbing - how can people live like that?
September 20, 2018
It's basically a picture book. It takes only a few minutes to get through. Sometimes interesting, sometimes passable.
March 6, 2021
Fascinating!
June 2, 2021
Cynical, optimistic, flippable and sticks.
August 4, 2022
Basically just a coffee table book but it was funny and had terms worth bringing into my lexicon. Lulu, duck, toad, snout house, privatopia, parsley round the pig, leapfrog, Ruburb, zoomburb
April 23, 2013
Quick and provocative, simple yet offering some nice depth beneath the surfaces. Hayden's book is easy to read (I read it in 1/2 an hour) and lovely to look at. What she achieves in this book that is mostly photographs is a vocabulary tethered to images: a number of important ways of seeing space and place. Hers is a virulent critique of the "free market" spatial practices that riddle the American landscape: drive-thrus, pollution, waste, anomie, kitsch.
This is a book for fans of the new urbanism and Jane Jacobs, for critics of car culture, for environmentalists. This is a book for geographers and planners, an offering to those who want words with which to represent--and confront--the dehumanization of space. This is a book who want a vocabulary with which to begin imagining a more communal, more holistic, more naturally and locally integrated way of being in and making place.
Hayden's "field guide" works a bit like a naturalist's field guide to birds or trees: here is the classification, this is its life cycle, these are the things it consumes. She is renaming and categorizing the American landscape: typing and bracketing off what is too often ignored, naturalized, or celebrated.
Suitable for young readers, beginners, slow readers, and also appropriate for the more critically trained. This is a sort of radical coffee table book, and/or an easily accessible way to think about American cultural landscapes. It could find a home in a junior high school child's hands, on the back of the toilet, or alongside books that can be flipped through for analysis and inspiration.
This is a book for fans of the new urbanism and Jane Jacobs, for critics of car culture, for environmentalists. This is a book for geographers and planners, an offering to those who want words with which to represent--and confront--the dehumanization of space. This is a book who want a vocabulary with which to begin imagining a more communal, more holistic, more naturally and locally integrated way of being in and making place.
Hayden's "field guide" works a bit like a naturalist's field guide to birds or trees: here is the classification, this is its life cycle, these are the things it consumes. She is renaming and categorizing the American landscape: typing and bracketing off what is too often ignored, naturalized, or celebrated.
Suitable for young readers, beginners, slow readers, and also appropriate for the more critically trained. This is a sort of radical coffee table book, and/or an easily accessible way to think about American cultural landscapes. It could find a home in a junior high school child's hands, on the back of the toilet, or alongside books that can be flipped through for analysis and inspiration.
Read
July 25, 20112005- I've heard many of the terms before. Zoomburb. Big Box. Alligator. I guess that's what happens when you grow up in the house of an engineer. I figured this illustrated guide would be interesting to look at, so I picked it up. The pictures were only satisfactory, and some of the writing was above my head. I did learn lots of new terms though. However, I don't think I would recommend this unless you have some interest in land-use, urban planning, or architecture.
July 19, 2008
I just got this out of the library to re-read it. Looking at this book kind of reminds me of slowing down on the highway to get a look at an accident. What you see never makes you feel good. It makes you feel repulsed and powerless. But somehow it feels like you are also paying attention to something that should not be ignored, no matter how familiar it seems.
July 15, 2012
Sprawl explained through aerial photographs and definitions of terms like "zoomburb," "snout house," and "duck," most of which are loaded with disdain. I can't wait to drop them on my next road-trip. Large aerials are absolutely the best way to learn about sprawl. Made in 2004; I would love to see an update.
December 24, 2007
A picture book with often clever captions/descriptions, this is intended to codify a lexicon (taken from various - mostly recent - sources) about the crap that makes up much of the suburban US. Whether this really fills a perceived void in a productive sense, I dunno. But it's a fun guidebook.
June 13, 2009
Depressing. McMansion suburbs look bad enough in the drive by. From an ariel perspective they are even more hideous. One pointless cul-du-sac after another. And the land fills and the tire dumps, Bleeech ~ My 1950's era ranch-burb seems so much nicer now!
January 3, 2010
An intriguing photo/field guide with aerial shots of Walmarts, parking lots, housing developments, landfills, etc as well as their accompanying nicknames (ruburbs, ducks, big boxes, power center, etc). We've got a lot of wasted/dead space out there, folks.
June 6, 2013
This is a great little book that explains the finer points of terms associated wit urban sprawl. The unique guide displays several aerial photos per term, and is written after obvious extensive research into where and how terms have been used in scholarly work. Well done.
January 21, 2014
Discussion of impacts of sprawl and where it came from is interesting. The typology of sprawl is interesting but I really never hear people use the majority of these words. Have you really named the problems if no one uses the terms you created for them?
February 19, 2007
it's a book of pictures, come on! in all seriousness, the wonderful descriptions really help to put what we see on a daily basis into context. i'm a sucker for aerial photos.
February 25, 2007
Most of Hayden's books are geared toward the academic set (and very valauble in that sense.) This one is a nicely assembled guide to planning issues for the general public
May 14, 2008
The photography is breathtaking, the text is eye opening, but I wish this book was three times larger.
October 27, 2008
Great photos and rather poignant descriptions
Read
May 27, 2009An excellent coffee table book. Also helpful for describing and interpreting everything you hate about your urban environment.
August 12, 2009
Mostly a picture book, but really good and witty.
November 12, 2010
Just definitions really. Very short and direct with DISTURBING pictures of sprawl. Eek!
April 20, 2012
this was cute. i read it in a few hours! and now i know what a duck is.
April 15, 2012
A witty tour of the metastasizing mega-projects that dwarf the old roadside sprawl. Read it and weep.
November 17, 2012
An excellent, short, illustrated book by a former professor of mine at UCLA. Full of trenchant analysis that I remember well from her class. The aerial shots are especially telling.
November 17, 2013
Breathtaking picture book on peri-urban landscapes. If you are wondering what all the fuss is about sprawl, take a look.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews