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In this text, Ford offers an account of the relationship between urban architecture - especially vernacular architecture - and the spatial arrangement and development of cities in North America. From office towers in the central business district to commercial strips in the edge city, Ford shows how changes in the built environment parallel changes in urban economies and human culture. Focusing on ordinary structures rather than famous landmarks, the book aims to provide a guide to understanding the changing character of any urban landscape.

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CHOICE Review

Ford embraces an admirable goal: to better relate space, the primary concern of geographers, with place, the traditional interest of architectural and social historians. He succeeds at one level by drawing on a great deal of secondary information on the built environment to develop general rules for the placement of such divergent building types as skyscrapers and garden apartments. He incorporates some unusual original sources as well, including real estate multiple listing service guides. He draws his examples widely from the US and abroad and documents them well with his own photographs. In the process, he provides many arguments for the importance of design in understanding social change. Although he of necessity divides the examination of building types into different chapters, in doing so he blurs the effects of one phenomenon on another, especially the way the latest stage in concentrated suburban development affects the historic downtown. Not a thoroughly documented or entirely original book, this study nonetheless provides an able synthesis while at the same time suggesting new avenues for future research. General; advanced undergraduate; faculty. H. Gillette Jr.; George Washington University