The Life and Death of Ancient Cities: A Natural History

Abstract

als, internal building systems, and allowable innovations are decided by standards organizations, code development bodies, and state and federal legislatures, leaving the designer with a very limited scope for shaping each individual building. The implication is that innovators need to devote effort to the shared project of predesign and not only to their individual design commissions. Otherwise, many of the most meaningful design choices will remain with the marketers, financiers, and insurers. This is familiar territory for planners more so than for architects. The book’s content and message are sound, but several omissions are puzzling. First, there is little use of relevant social science regarding the logics of federalism, the processes of political agenda setting, the emergence of social movements, and the reconfiguring of social practices. Thus, the book’s tone is inductive and somewhat disconnected from established social theory. Second, there is little discussion of the innovation diffusion process and how early adopters respond to different incentives and rules than late adopters. The policy discussion suffers as a result. Third, there is little comparative discussion to contrast the home building industry with other industries in terms of capital intensiveness, durability of product, liquidity of market, and other factors known to drive the potential pace of innovation. The resulting slow rate of innovation might actually be preferable for most people. Fourth, the building occupant is treated mostly as an exogenous factor that undermines designs, rather than as an active player in the drama. These omissions detract from the book’s authority but not from its contribution, which is to focus reformers’ attention on the predesign arena where the interested parties make key sustainability and resilience decisions. The historical narrative and many anecdotes effectively make this case.