Road to Ruin: An Introduction to Sprawl and How to Cure It

by Dom Nozzi

What causes sprawl, and are there sensible solutions to its aggravating problems? Nozzi delivers an easy-to-follow introduction to sprawl's causes and offers common-sense solutions available to communities. The time is ripe for resurrecting the tradition of designing that makes people, not cars, happy. Since the end of World War II, America has been obsessed with a desire to improve conditions for cars, not people, primarily through enormous subsidies for road widening and construction of free parking. Not only does this obsession worsen conditions for motorists (at great public expense), it traps communities in a vicious cycle that delivers a declining, sprawling, financially bankrupting future―regardless of the quality of regulations, plans, planners, or elected officials. Nozzi delivers an easy-to-follow introduction to sprawl's causes and offers common-sense solutions available to communities. The time is ripe for resurrecting the tradition of designing that makes people, not cars, happy. The key is returning to modest, human-scaled streets, parking, land use, and development regulations. Design principles encouraging walking, bicycling, and mass transit in conjunction with automobile travel are essential to creating livable cities once again. A professional city planner for over 15 years, Nozzi has firsthand knowledge of what works, what doesn't, and what real-world obstacles are faced when dealing with sprawl. Aimed at people who want an insider's introduction to our road, traffic, and land-use problems, this book is a useful guide to both professional planners and citizens concerned about the future of their own communities.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 2003

Reviews

[Node · Rating 5 out of 5]

What causes sprawl? How can it be controlled? What can restore and improve an urban neighborhood? Dom Nozzi does an excellent job in providing solutions to these problems. It requires, us as people, to throw away the conventional wisdom and stop thinking of ourselves as motorists first and start thinking of ourselves as people.

A crucial key to preventing sprawl is road design. Wider and faster streets encourage people to live farther away, which in turn, makes them high dependent on cars for everyday living. Living at such farther distance increases car usage and trips which in turn encourage congestion. These bigger roads all in in all are very good at deterring alternate modes of transportation such as walking, bicycling, and mass transit since everything is too spaced apart to be viable.

I really loved this book. It was easy to read and very engaging. I see my city's streets and notice many of the problems described in this book. Hopefully, this information will entertain for a bit as I grudge through traffic and the distance I travel. I highly recommend it.