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A lexicon of the colorful slang, from alligator to zoomburb, that defines sprawl in America today, illustrated with aerial photographs by Jim Wark.
Duck, ruburb, tower farm, big box, and pig-in-a-python are among dozens of zany terms invented by real estate developers and designers to characterize land use practices and the physical elements of sprawl. Sprawl in the environment, based on the metaphor of a person spread out, is hard to define. This concise book engages its meaning, explains common building patterns, and illustrates the visual culture of sprawl. Seventy-five stunning color aerial photographs, each paired with a definition, convey the impact of excessive development and provide verbal and visual vocabulary needed by professionals, public officials, and citizens to critique uncontrolled growth in the American landscape.
Reviews of the book:
An eye-popping compendium of 51 ‘built conditions’ and the memorable terms that describe them.
–– Jennifer Schuessler, The Boston Globe
A mere glance through the pages of this book offers a quick education about the excesses of the recently built environment. Hayden…provides a combination of informed but breezy text and 75 large, crisp color images that greatly simplify the task of decoding everyday American landscapes...This book is a concise guide to not only sprawl itself but to the powerful political and financial forces that sustain it.
–– Publishers Weekly
May well establish Ms. Hayden as the Roger Tory Peterson of sprawl.
–– Patricia Leigh Brown, The New York Times
Engagingly organized and splendidly photographed.
–– Julia Vitullo-Martin, The Wall Street Journal
Novel...a compact, quirky, self-styled 'devil's dictionary'...fascinating color aerial photos.
–– Library Journal
A wonderful guide to the terrible things being done to the American landscape.
–– Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation
Vocabulary
Alligator
Asphalt nation
Ball pork
Big box
Boomburb
Car glut
Category-killer
Clustered world
Drive-through
Duck
Edge node
Export garbage
Greenfield
Gridlock
Ground cover
Growth machine
Impervious surface
Interstate
Landfill
Leapfrog
Litter on a stick
Logo building
Low-density
LULU
Mall glut
Mansion subsidy
Manufactured housing
Noise wall
Ozoner
Pod
Pork chop lot
Power center
Power grid
Privatopia
Put parsley round the pig
Rural slammer
Sitcom suburb
Snout house
Starter castle
Streetcar buildout
Strip
Tank farm
Theming
Tire dump
TOAD
Tower farm
Tract mansion
Truck city
Water feature
Valhalla
Zoomburb
