A witty, readable, and highly original tour through the history of America's suburbs and cities to uncover the human impulses that keep sprawl spreading

• Introduction - Escape from the suburbs


• Part I - Getting Hooked


• Chapter 1 - The strange birth of suburbia


• Chapter 2 - Planners and embalmers


• Chapter 3 - Government-sponsored sprawl


• Chapter 4 - Ticky-tacky boxes


• Chapter 5 - Jane Jacobs vs. the planners


• Chapter 6 - Saving the city


• Chapter 7 - The age of the nimby


• Part II - The Sprawl Addiction


• Chapter 8 - Spreading like cancer


• Chapter 9 - The war of greed against snobbery


• Chapter 10 - A new thirst for city life


• Chapter 11 - Backlash from the right


• Chapter 12 - The language of land use


• Part III - How to Kick the Habit


• Chapter 13 - Struggles for smart growth


• Chapter 14 - Democratic urbanism


• Chapter 15 - Affordable housing in an ownership economy


• Chapter 16 - On track toward livable cities


• Afterword

Benjamin Ross was president of Maryland's Action Committee for Transit for 15 years, which grew under his leadership into the nation's largest grass-roots transit advocacy group. He is a consultant on environmental problems and served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and EPA Science Advisory Board. He writes frequently on political and social topics in Dissent Magazine and is the author of The Polluters: The Making of Our Chemically Altered Environment.