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  • The Geography of Nowhere

  • The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
  • Written by: James Howard Kunstler
  • Narrated by: Al Kessel
  • Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (8 ratings)

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The Geography of Nowhere

Written by: James Howard Kunstler
Narrated by: Al Kessel
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Publisher's Summary

In elegant and often hilarious prose, Kunstler depicts our nation's evolution from the Pilgrim settlements to the modern auto suburb in all its ghastliness. The Geography of Nowhere tallies up the huge economic, social, and spiritual costs that America is paying for its car-crazed lifestyle. It is also a wake-up call for citizens to reinvent the places where we live and work, to build communities that are once again worthy of our affection. Kunstler proposes that by reviving civic art and civic life, we will rediscover public virtue and a new vision 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."

The Geography of Nowhere has become a touchstone work in the two decades since its initial publication, its incisive commentary giving language to the feeling of millions of Americans that our nation's suburban environments were ceasing to be credible human habitats. Since that time, the work has inspired city planners, architects, legislators, designers, and citizens everywhere.

©1993, 2016 James Howard Kunstler (P)2019 Tantor

What listeners say about The Geography of Nowhere

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  • Kat
  • 2020-06-02

Valuable insights and interesting arguments but..

An interesting history lesson on the mistakes made by past architects and urban planners as well as the degradation of American communities as a result of car culture. However, the author’s sometimes mysogynistic and anti-low income opinions can be really off-putting. His arguments regarding the children of single mothers and how low income individuals degrade buildings and neighbourhoods are extremely biased and based purely on conjecture, making this work very tone deaf and eye roll-inducing in places. Listen at your own risk of annoyance.

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Spoiled by poor reading

The reading is deeply unsympathetic to the book's content. The reader employs the same tone, and the same pattern of emphases and pauses, unvaryingly, throughout the audiobook. Particularly when the author clearly means to communicate anger, or disapproval, the reader's tone, which never varies, seems dramatically at odds with the author's message.

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