Book Review: The Option of Urbanism

Christopher Leinberger’s The Option of Urbanism: Investing in a New American Dream is an eminently readable account of the re-emergence of “walkable urbanism” as an alternative to the dominant “drivable sub-urbanism” of late-20th-century America. Combining pop culture references, urban form history, and recent research, Leinberger entertains as he leads a general audience of readers through the possibilities and difficulties presented by this new version of the American dream. Although architects and historians such as Andrés Duany, Peter Calthorpe, and Kenneth Jackson have covered the subject in popular and broadly read books, Leinberger’s background as both a real estate scholar and a developer of mixed-use projects allows him to address this issue from a unique and relevant perspective. Planners, developers, and all those interested in sustainable real estate development will find this book an engaging and valuable addition to their library