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.

Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com ( )