Strata E-Book Review: The Gated City

Here’s a worthwhile electronic book for everyone interested in high density living.  Well it’s actually a Kindle book (or more correctly a Kindle Single).

It’s called the "The Gated City" by Ryan Avent and in it he tries to get to the bottom of the problem of ever more inaccessible large US cities (like San Francisco) where inner city vibrant areas are losing residents to less attractive and distant locations due to public transport issues.

He argues that the current situation has major economic consequences and argues that it's mostly due to the bad case of NIMBY: the "not in my back yard" attitude of many residents in the major urban areas. These residents through the political process exercise an influence on the building permits and the zoning laws that far exceeds their economic clout. He supports his theories with a few interesting and revealing studies and also attempts to provide a solution for this problem.

So, if you care about making high density urban areas work it’s definitely worth reading this Kindle Single.

Francesco …