Book description
A Field Guide to Sprawl was selected by the urban web site Planetizen for its list of "Top Ten Books in Urban Studies" and by Discover magazine for its list of "Top 20 Books in Science." Features on the book appeared in The New York Times and the Boston Globe.
…Why read it?
1 author picked A Field Guide to Sprawl as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Is a picture worth a thousand words? Urbanist Dolores Hayden sure thinks so, providing a cheeky, even snarky, guide to the worst aspects of the contemporary suburban landscape.
Brightly lit aerial photographs (many are from the American Southwest) show big box interchanges, lollipop subdivisions, tower farms for the electronic world, and all the other ways in which sprawl chews up the American land. Leaf through the pages, then you get to choose: Do you weep or do you scream in outrage?
From Carl's list on The best books about suburbs around the world.
If you love A Field Guide to Sprawl...
December on 5C4
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Want books like A Field Guide to Sprawl?
Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 84 books like A Field Guide to Sprawl.
Share your top 3 reads of 2026!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
170
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like A Field Guide to Sprawl, you might also like...
Sexy Selfie Nation
The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.
Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…
In This Together
In This Together explores how we can harness our social networks to make a real impact fighting the climate crisis. Against notions of the lone environmental crusader, Marianne E. Krasny shows us the power of "network climate action"—the idea that our own ordinary acts can influence and inspire those close…
