#steven conn

[tomipri]

By the end of February, I was slightly off-pace for reaching my reading goal. By the end of March, I was even more off-pace since I read only two books. So far in 2016, I’ve read seven books. To be on-pace, I should be up to nine.

I read my first Neil Gaiman book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed. Although some details were unique, a lot of the book felt unoriginal. Young boy dealing with mean adults finds refuge with a girl down the lane who happens to have magical powers. Adventure ensues. And it felt a little underdeveloped. The story was eager to get from plot point to plot point but at the expense of character development.

It was fine.

Given that so many people I know love Gaiman, I’ll probably give him another try down the road, so to speak.

The other book I read, Steven Conn’s Americans Against the City, is a much different kind of book being a history of anti-urbanism in the United States. I love living in a city and am perplexed by the suburbs, so this was a fascinating read for me. I grew up in a part of Philadelphia that was more suburban and always wanted to live in a more urban environment. It took me 42 years, but I finally ended up back in the heart of Philadelphia and finally like where I live.

Conn’s book traces anti-urban arguments from around the Industrial Revolution to the present. The arguments against the city varied over the years, addressing issues such as over-crowding, fear of big government, fear of communism and liberalism, and racially biased urban renewal. Although the book focuses on arguments against the city, in the end, Conn’s book is very much pro-city and explains the benefits of diversity, density, public transit, and sustainability.

As an outspoken proponent of city living, I found Conn’s book an intriguing examination as to why people choose to live where they do.

So far in 2016, I’ve read 5 books:

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 (ebook)

Ubik (library book)

Purity (library book)

Station Eleven

The Fracking King (ebook)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane (library book)

Americans Against the City (library book)

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New blog post: March 2016 Reading Update By the end of February, I was slightly off-pace for reaching my reading goal. By the end of March, I was even more off-pace since I read only two books.

[litrant]

Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century by Steven Conn (Oxford University Press, $34.95).

There are some people who seem to think cities are somehow—for lack of a better word—sinful.

Beyond just not wanting to live in one, there exists in the American mythos the idea that rural life is not only healthier and more industrious, but somehow more virtuous. The belief has fueled the development of suburbs and their accompanying sprawl for more than a century, as Steven Conn points out in Americans Against the City: Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century.

A history professor at the Ohio State University, Conn suggests that this distrust of urbanism fuels our “red state-blue state” divide, but that it’s also preventing us from solving some of our most entrenched social problems.

This is a comprehensive examination of how we came to hate the city without embracing the small community—for, as he clearly notes, the suburbs are the not small towns, which—like cities—produce social mixing rather than isolation. The substitution of the suburb, with its lack of true community centers and required cars actually work against the real advantages of a small town, creating instead an illusion of semi-rural living, one without the work of farm life, the mutual engagement of small towns, and the social mixing of cities.

Conn's book provides some real insight into the political and social implications of accepting suburbs as substitutes for small town and rural life.

[21stcenturydems-blog]

How the free market uses government ... how Ayn Rand became the gateway drug for right wingers like Paul Ryan ... and how Joe Biden exposed Ryan's extremism. Steven Conn: Ohio State's Steven Conn's new book, "To Promote the General Welfare: The Case for Big Government," takes apart the myth of a free market. He points out that there has never been a truly free market in America because the private sector routinely relies on government -- from building railroads to banning women's reproductive choices. Jennifer Burns: Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan was an acolyte of right-wing philosopher Ayn Rand. Stanford's Jennifer Burns is a professor at Stanford who is an expert on that philosophy, and she explains its hold on Ryan and other extreme conservatives. According to Burns, Ayn Rand is "a gateway drug to life on the right." Sherrod Brown: Bill Press and guest Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown with a morning-after analysis of the vice presidential debate. Jim Hightower takes a look at plutocrats on welfare.