Sprawl Kills

How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health, and Money

By Joel S Hirschhorn

“We all know how sprawl devours our landscape and wastes our cultural, natural and economic resources, but there is plenty of convincing, and alarming, evidence that poorly planned, car-focused development poses a very real threat to our health and the quality of our lives. Joel Hirschhorn’s passionately presented insights on the workings of the “sprawl industry” prove insightful and useful to
everyone who wants communities that are truly livable.”

— Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation

“A brash, hard-hitting account of the forces that encourage sprawl and their impact on human health and well-being.”
— Dr. Howard Frumkin, Professor of Medicine, Emory Medical School

“This book will help Americans understand the price of development and think more holistically about their neighbors and communities.”
— Fred Kent, President, Project for Public Spaces

“Hirschhorn does a wonderful job of tying together the roots of bad land use, including the "sprawl shills" who serve the industry - land developers, home builders, road builders and others who live off automobile dependency.”
— Mike Ivey, The Capitol Times, Madison, WI

“An admirable and recommended right-on evaluation of Sprawl’s horrible consequences. An important book.”
— Joe Guzzardi, Lodi News-Sentinel

Here is the basic truth.  Living in sprawl where people are physically separated from other people, and from their jobs, and virtually all other destinations and needs, is fundamentally unhealthy.

From the former Director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources at the National Governors Association in Washington, DC comes a hard-hitting book that reveals what land developers and home builders don’t want you to hear, and corrupt politicians don’t want you to know.  It debunks the “American Dream” where “success” means piloting gas-guzzling SUVs to oozing honeycombs in blandburbs developed by greedy corporations. Readers will be outraged at how sprawl business has corrupted government agencies in charge of land use and will be motivated to seek true neighborhoods and real communities as they learn about the negative impacts of living in sprawl, such as the fact that it is the killer of 400,000 Americans each year in the form of Sedentary Death Syndrome.

Sprawl Kills examines a combination of topics that no similar book has achieved, including the sprawl industry, sprawl culture, sprawl politics, alternatives to sprawl and the sprawl influence on physical and mental health.

You can certainly choose to ignore sprawl, but it will not ignore you. In reading Sprawl Kills, the readers will learn how to fight corrupt sprawl politics, identify sprawl shills, and kill sprawl, before it kills them.

As Don Chen, Executive Director of Smart Growth America says, "With the insight gained from his years observing the nation's State Governors, Dr. Hirschhorn dissects the influence of what he calls the ‘sprawl lobby’ like few writers have. Whether you like sprawl or hate it, you'll certainly wonder whether the back-room perversion of local land markets that Dr. Hirschhorn describes is the best way to shape our communities or help families achieve the American dream."

About the Author

As the Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources at the National Governors Association, Dr. Hirschhorn became recognized around the world as a leading authority on suburban sprawl. Dr. Hirschhorn has appeared on CBS Evening News, PBS, The McNeil-Lehrer Report, NBC, CNN, and others, and has had op-eds in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune.  He is recognized as a passionate and provocative public speaker.