The Debate Over New Urbanism

"Inflated expectations are as much a part of urban history as skyscrapers or shopping malls. Whenever there's a problem, some group rises up with a utopian cure -- and smugly puts down the last group of would-be saviors.The result is an endless cycle where rhetoric and reality never quite meet. And it's a tension shown vividly in these two new books: "Big Plans," a too- casual history of dashed hopes, and "The Seaside Debates," where the latest planning movement prompts a genuinely stimulating tussle between skeptics and true believers."

Thanks to Laura Kranz