Sunnyside Gardens: Planning and Preservation in a Historic Garden Suburb by Jeffrey A. Kroessler, and: Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gordon Young (review)

new proposals for the site accountable to public review and local demands for more affordable housing. His vivid description of this contentious episode successfully conveys the sense of community desperation that is often the prime motivator, unfortunately, for members of the public to engage in preservation work. Passell concludes his study by reiterating his claim that the effects of historic district designations are determined by contingent historical and geographical factors, and then calling for additional placebased case studies of the historic districting process. Ultimately, the ambitions of Preserving Neighborhoods are modest. Never proposing to resolve the question of whether historic districts are ultimately good or bad for architecture or urban life, the book is an invitation to rethink a powerful historic preservation tool from a datadriven and communitycentered perspective.