The Case against Smart Growth

“The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths: How Smart Growth will Harm American Cities” by Randal O’Toole, the Thoreau Institute, Jan 01, 546p. This brilliant book deserves a much longer note, but we haven’t time. It’s a comprehensive, reasoned, well-documented, very readable critique of ‘smart growth’ – the contemporary planning fad that suggests roadbuilding be stopped and densities increased. It is an interesting movement because it so fiercely rejects the expansive auto-based milieu in which most people prefer to live and work. Most of the ideas of the Smart Growth movement turn out to be fallacies, misunderstandings or misrepresentations, sometimes trojan horses for an unpopular agenda that cannot be openly promoted. O’Toole is a compelling writer, his work meaty, persuasive, and informative. It is a mix of analysis, data presentation and story-telling. And as someone who has lived in Portland Oregon – in the heart of the Smart Growth beast – for over 20 years he has plenty of good stories to tell. He leaves the reader with many telling examples and memorable phrases in a 35mm (1 3/8") thick work organized into 9 parts, 40 chapters, 83 ‘myth’ sidebars, 8 case studies, 11 fact sheets, and a bunch of web tools and other resources, plus a glossary and index. “The Vanishing Auto...” is a must-read/must-have-on-the-shelf for people dealing with these hot urban planning and transport policy issues, and an amazing bargain at $14.95. Get it via www.ti.org or 541 347 1517.