| Title | : | The Last Landscape |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812217993 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812217995 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 392 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1970 |
Called "the best study available on the problems of open space" by the New York Times when it first appeared in 1968, The Last Landscape introduced many cornerstone ideas for land conservation, urging all of us to make better use of the land that has survived amid suburban sprawl. Whyte's pioneering work on easements led to the passage of major open space statutes in many states, and his argument for using and linking green spaces, however small the areas may be, is a recommendation that has more currency today than ever before.
The Last Landscape Reviews
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For those of you that would find this an engaging and useful book - all five of you...not all five of you on goodreads.com, but all five of you at least somewhat sentient beings within the english speaking world - I beseech you to leave a review that will entice me to read the second half of this book. I aquired this for a dollar or two at a library book discard sell and, a couple years later after reading reference after reference to William's (I think his last name is spelled "Whyte" yet, on this particular website, the box overlaps the name of the author and if you click above to look at it, it erases everything you've written - thus my lack of comment on The Historiography of Modern Architecture which was, no doubt, pithy and important but was eradicated by this stupid interface! Fool me once goodreads.com...) book about Organization Man I started reading this as it was on hand. So I got about half way through, I seem to recall, 500 pages of William expounding upon the legalese of how the few interested people circa 1967-ish might go about saving swaths of rural land in the state of Maryland from being subsumed by sprawl. Perhaps it was because of the author's reasoned, somewhat banal, actuarial-like approach to the issue combined with my assumption that 30-something years later - as I'm reading this - every piece of acreage he's talking about has probably been paved over 8 times, I found it depressing in so many ways. He delves into various tactics of land aquisition that has perhaps proved beneficial since. He mentions something called a "Fee-simple" strategy I seem to recall, and perhaps he invented this? And perhaps this has proven, subsequently, to be some major tool for aquiring land away from avaricious developers in such states as Vermont and Oregon? I dunno...I'm a redneck from Texas/Arkansas where everything is simple, yet doesn't ultimately work. And, as I said so many ages ago at the top line of this run-on paragraph, let me know why I need to find my copy, blow the sundry dust bunnies off of it, and read it to get something out of it. And don't tell me that it's more important than Organization Man. I did eventually read it and I'll soon comment on the frequent overuse of that one by people who obviously haven't read it!
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I am slowly making my way through this book due to time constraints. It contains compelling stuff, though. Whyte was ahead of his time in applying European principles to save urban and suburban open space. One of my recent internships involved writing a literature review of economic impact analyses of multiuse trails and greenways. This book from 1968 is relevant to research being done in 2015 as Whyte extols the values of linear open space in the urban environment. Also, the appropriation of obsolete rights-of-way such as abandoned roads, railroads, and canals is happening all around us, just as Whyte suggested it should.
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author recommended by scott doyle
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You have to be interested in rural planning to appreciate this book but, if you are, it is a really wise and well-informed book. I am!
