this was cute. i read it in a few hours! and now i know what a duck is. ( )

Dolores Hayden's great glossary of sprawl uses aerial photographs by Jim Wark to further describe the American suburban phenomenon. Many of the terms are humorous, though not in the sense that sprawl is funny — in the way some expressions are latched on to some pretty absurd ways we use the land. There's the familiar "duck," "drive-through," and "strip," but also "ball pork" (a stadium built with public funds for a privately owned ball team), "litter on a stick" (billboards), and "ozoner" (drive-in movie theater). By using these and other terms (be it by creating new terms or using existing ones), Hayden makes the various components and results of sprawl memorable. Like Alex S. MacLean, seeing the landscape of America's (sub)urbanism from the air is one of the best ways to convey the scale of destruction and monotony that this country will have to face up to and remedy one of these days. ( )

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 taxpayers but that benefits a rich owner. A TOAD is a "temporary, obsolete, abandoned or derelict site", such as a dead mall or factory. Each term comes with a very illustrative picture. For example, a "greenfield", that is a suburban development carved out of raw land, comes with a picture of tract homes juxtaposed with a working farm. ( )

This books was both fun to look through and educative to read. Through the use of aerial photographs, it shows how the landscape in the United States has been changed through sprawl. Each photograph has a theme, such as privatopia, starter castle, logo building, car glut and the text amplifies the picture. This is well worth a read for any person interested in urban or regional planning. ( )