"It's A Sprawl World After All" is the title of a book by Douglas Morris which examines the relationship between our "sprawling" urban and suburban culture and crime. Here are some of the questions he raises:
- Do you feel unsafe walking at night, even in your own neighborhood?
- Does it seem as if people are increasingly rude, impolite, and even openly hostile?
- Are you surrounded by others, yet you often feel isolated and alone?
If so, this book's for you!
This ground breaking exposé makes the startling connection between suburban sprawl and the violent breakdown in American society, and shows how the fragmented expanses of suburbia twisted the American Dream into a nightmare. Even with all the wealth and opportunity in America, we continue to feel disconnected from community life and leery of any unfamiliar face.
Without small towns bringing people together in communities and keeping them safe, the unplanned growth of sprawl has left Americans isolated, alienated and afraid of the strangers that surround them. As a result, the U.S. now has the most rapes, assaults, murders and serial killings per capita, by a wide margin, than any other first-world nation.
"Morris has made a convincing argument connecting the breakdown of American society with suburban sprawl. His book is a challenge to sociologists, criminologists, and urban planners everywhere to begin serious study of the human costs associated with living in suburbia."
- Ray Oldenburg, author of The Great Good Place and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at The University of West Florida
It's a Sprawl World After All is the first book to connect America's increase in violence and the corresponding breakdown in society, with the post WWII development of the alienating expanses suburbia. Suburbia has substituted cars for conversation, malls for mainstreets, and the artificial community of television for genuine social interaction. All of which has had a dramatically negative impact on U.S. society, including:
- Transforming America's community-oriented small town sensibilities into an isolated society of strangers burdened by loneliness and depression;
- Creating a culture of incivility characterized by extreme individualism and a callous disregard for others; and
- Increasing levels of violence so dramatically as to be proclaimed "epidemic" by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"There is so little public debate about the insane living arrangement that most Americans consider normal. This book helps remedy that situation, a clear wake up call to a nation that has been sleepwalking into the future."
James Howard Kunstler, renowned urban critic and author of The Geography of Nowhere and Home From Nowhere
Advocating that urgent attention be paid to managing urban development by emulating the Smart Growth examples of European cities, the book's final section offers readers tools to rebuild community in their lives as well as in society at large. Offering practical, do-able solutions that will improve every American's quality of life,
It's A Sprawl World After All also includes a helpful resource list of organizations committed to making communities more sustainable.
