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From Cornfield to New Town: Real Estate Development from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-First Century, and Why We Live in Houses Anyway
Scribner
May 2008
On Sale: May 13, 2008
336 pages
ISBN: 0743235975
EAN: 9780743235976
Paperback
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Non-Fiction
When Witold Rybczynski first heard about New Daleville, it
was only a developer's idea, attached to ninety acres of
cornfield an hour and a half west of Philadelphia. Over the
course of five years, Rybczynski met and talked to everyone
involved in the building of this residential subdivision --
from the developers to the township leaders, whose approval
they needed, to the home builders and engineers and,
ultimately, the first families who moved in. Always eloquent and illuminating, the award-winning author
of Home and A Clearing in the Distance looks at
this "neotraditional" project, with its houses built close
together to encourage a sense of intimacy and community,
and explains the trends in American domestic architecture --
from where we place our kitchens and fences to why our
bathroomsget larger every year. Last Harvest was voted one of the ten best books of 2008 by
the editors of Planetizen, and as Publishers Weekly
said, "Rybczynski provides historical and cultural
perspectives in a style reminiscent of Malcolm Gladwell,
debunking the myth of urban sprawl and explaining American
homeowners' preference for single-family dwellings."
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