Reforming Suburbia

" Reforming Suburbia is a fascinating book. Forsyth examines the planned new towns of Columbia, Irvine, and The Woodlands through dozens of interviews with developers, designers, and residents as well as extensive archival research. She tackles complex public and private investments and asks how negotiations proceeded between government and real estate developers, all the while keeping an eye on the issues of race, gender, environmental sustainability, and marketing. This is required reading for anyone interested in the practice of American urban development."—Dolores Hayden, author of Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 "Ann Forsyth significantly enriches the fields of planning and architectural history with her thorough analysis of the social, ecological, and economic successes and shortcomings of these three prominent new communities. She offers valuable insights and wonderfully captures the idealistic spirit of the late 1960s and early 1970s."—Frederick Steiner, author of Human Ecology The "new community" movement of the 1960s and 1970s attempted a grand experiment in housing. It inspired the construction of innovative communities that were designed to counter suburbia's cultural conformity, social isolation, ugliness, and environmental problems. This richly documented book examines the results of those experiments in three of the most successful new communities: Irvine Ranch in Southern California, Columbia in Maryland, and The Woodlands in the suburbs of Houston, Texas. Based on new research and interviews with developers, designers, and residents, Ann Forsyth traces the evolution, the successes, and the shortcomings of these experiments in urban innovation. Where they succeeded, in areas such as community identity and open space preservation, they provide support for current "smart growth" proposals. Where they did not, in areas such as housing affordability and transportation choices, they offer important insights for today's planners, designers, developers, civic leaders, and others interested in incorporating new forms of development into their designs.