''The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape'' is a book written in 1993 by

James Howard Kunstler James Howard Kunstler (born October 19, 1948) is an American author, social critic, public speaker, and blogger. He is best known for his books ''The Geography of Nowhere'' (1994), a history of American suburbia and urban development, ''The Long ...

exploring the effects of suburban sprawl, civil planning, and the automobile on

American society The society of the United States is based on Western culture, and has been developing since long before the United States became a country with its own unique social and cultural characteristics such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, ...

and is an attempt to discover how and why

suburbia A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include Commercial area, commercial and mixed-use development, mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a ...

has ceased to be a credible human habitat, and what society might do about it. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

of the common good: "The future will require us to build better places," Kunstler says, "or the future will belong to other people in other societies."

References

The Effects of Metropolitan Economic Segregation on Local Civic Participation
J. Eric Oliver, ''

American Journal of Political Science The ''American Journal of Political Science'' is a journal published by the Midwest Political Science Association. It was formerly known as the ''Midwest Journal of Political Science''. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal ...

'', Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan., 1999), pp. 186–212, 1993 non-fiction books Books about cultural geography Books about urbanism Simon & Schuster books {{architecture-book-stub