The basic ideas of the author regarding designing cities that are livable with more greenery and less cars is very appealing. However this book is in serious need of an editor. It's mostly a book about the evils of cars, freeways, gas, and oil. Interwoven are the author's personal anxieties and disagreements with both governments local and federal. Add to that some only tangentially-related attempts to be wax poetic on natural systems from the universe to our bodies and weave them into a narrative about cities; essentially he takes a page from the Deepak Chopra playbook of haphazardly borrowing from science to support their own narrative, science and relevance to the argument and hand be damned. I like the ideas in general but I cannot recommend this book. ( )