No communication with the sea : searching for an urban future in the Great Basin / Tim Sullivan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sullivan, Tim, 1978-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urbanization--Great Basin--Case studies.

Urbanization.

Urbanization--West (U.S.)--Case studies.

Cities and towns--Great Basin--Growth--Case studies.

Cities and towns.

Cities and towns--West (U.S.)--Growth--Case studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Tucson : University of Arizona Press, c2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Few other places in the United States are as high, dry, sparsely inhabited--and urbanized--as the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. The great majority of the population of this rapidly growing region lives in the two metropolitan areas at its edges, Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front, and Reno and the Truckee Meadows. These cities embody the allure and the challenge of the contemporary American West, deemed by some "The New American Heartland." "No Communication with the Sea" is a journey through this urbanizing Great Basin landscape. Here, the land fosters illusions of limitless space and resources, but its space and resources are severely limited; its people live clustered in cities but are often reluctant to embrace urbanity. These tensions led journalist and urban planner Tim Sullivan to explore the developing centers and edges of the Great Basin cities and the ways some are trying to build livable and sustainable urban environments. In this highly readable book of creative nonfiction, Sullivan employs a variety of methods--including interviews, research, travelogues, and narrative--to survey the harsh landscape for clues to the ways cities can adapt to their geography, topography, ecology, hydrography, history, and culture. "No Communication with the Sea" embarks on a quest for a livable future for the heart of the interior West. In the process, it both unearths the past and ponders the present and future Great Basin cities.

Contents:

Of sin and salvation : the architect and the gardener

Scaling the basin : peak to playa

Shorelands : life at the edge

Urban realities of rural places : the illusion of space

Public land, private politics : finding a new urban realm in the Great Basin

The depot : to Zion, to Aztlán.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-299-19142-8

0-8165-0116-5

OCLC:

747413925