PERC

I bought this book in order to prepare myself for my Engeneering exam (In México: Exámen Profesional)and graduate in Electrical-Mechanical Eng. For all Engeneering students and "pasantes" in México, this book is a very good summary of "carreras" such as IME, IM, IE, and IMA. It covers theory, concepts and problems in all fields of Engineering, it is written and edited very clear, easy to understand and follow. From basics of Math thru Statics, Thermodinamics, Electricity, electronics, power systems, economics, materials science, etc you will find a single and reliable source for study. Are you too busy to review, again, ALL the Eng. books you bought when in "la carrera" ? Do not know where to start? Are you going to apply for "CENEVAL exam"? This book will be the one your looking for. Enjoy it and good look!

This book is a poorly written and factually "challenged" libertarian diatribe, trying to pass itself off as Smart Growth. I was fooled by the misleading title and mistakenly ordered this book, which contains chapters extolling the role of the automobile in society, and containing some really intriguing ecological work describing the overpopulation of deer in suburbia as evidence of "wildlife diversity". This publishing company is a front supported by "free-market" supporting industry (read: no bothersome regulatory laws) which produce pseudo-science tracts such as this one.

Because this book was published by the conservative Heritage Foundation, I thought it would be pro-free market. Not so! This book is all for sprawl-producing Big Government highway spending; its position is that government is good when it subsidizes migration to suburbia and bad when it doesn't. Heritage should have disavowed this book and sent its authors either to the road builders association or to some more liberal institution.

Moreover, many of the essays in the book are shoddily reasoned and/or self-contradictory (whether due to unclear writing or unclear thought I cannot say). Just to name a few examples:

1. Utt writes: "there is little evidence to suggest that federal programs have contributed to or encouraged suburbanization" (p. 104) but also writes that various federal programs "may very well have worsened the plight of many older central cities by undermining the quality of urban living" (p. 102). If federal programs "undermined" urban living, they must have driven people into the suburbs. Ron Utt, meet Ron Utt.

2. Utt writes: "it was the availability of mass transit that largely facilitated the move to the suburbs throughout the 1950s" (p. 100). Just a paragraph earlier, he points out that as early as 1935, cities were shutting down trolley systems for lack of riders. So how can nonexistent transit systems create sprawl? And a page earlier, he suggests that "there is little convincing evidence to connect the growth of highways with the growth of the suburbs." But how can transit cause more sprawl than highways, given that highways throughout the 20th century while mass transit shrunk? And if mass transit caused suburban growth, how come there are so many suburbs with no mass transit?

3. After spending page after page explaining that Big Brother must build us new roads, Wendell Cox writes: "there are indications that the worst traffic congestion may be over. Future traffic growth may be considerably lower than in the past." (p. 60) It the problem is dwindling, why spend public money curing it? (To be fair, Cox, who has done better work elsewhere, does suggest privatization of roads, but I couldn't find evidence that he opposes government road spending if privatization doesn't happen).

Sometimes the essays appear to contradict each other. John Charles complains that Portland has shortchanged road spending (p. 131-32) but Angela Antonelli asserts that Portland has increased road construction by 108.1% between 1982 and 2000 (p. 150).

One or two essays are relatively innocuous, and one or two are not bad (Richard Stroup's essay on the defects of government generally, and Sam Staley's on the problems of zoning). Otherwise, this book would deserve zero stars rather than one.

A bit of disclosure here for those too lazy to read the fine print. If you think 'A Guide to Smart Growth' is an unbiased look at the issues surrounding urban sprawl and the 'Smart Growth' movement, think again.

This 'book' is published by the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank whose dogma is vehemently preached by such conservative spinmeisters as Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. The author, Jane S. Shaw, is a Senior Associate at PERC, the Political Economic Research Center, whose board of directors is composed of investment bankers, developers, venture capitalists, and members of the financial press.

That being said, I suspect there's more than a little conflict of interest here, considering the very interests that benefit from pro-sprawl development policies are the publishers and promoters of this book. Naturally its filled with questionable statistics by such pro-sprawl cheerleaders like Wendell Cox, who is well known in the urban planning community as vocal opponent of 'Smart Growth' and 'New Urbanism'.

By all means read this book to learn about the arguments of those who wish to destory the 'Smart Growth' and 'New Urbanism' movements. Just don't look for solutions, as their goal is to maintain the status quo, not to support responsible, sustainable alternatives to the suburban growth machine.