Demographia

Book Review:
The Vanishing Automobile:
By Randal O'Toole

The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths is a tour de force on the popular but hopeless strategies so wrongly named smart growth. Author Randal O'Toole has compiled more than 500 pages of data and analysis that leave literally no stone unturned. O'Toole became interested in smart growth when his neighborhood was targeted by Portland, Oregon urban planners for densification. Perhaps it would have been better if the planners had skipped Oak Grove, as O'Toole was soon to discover that the foundations of Portland's planning model were shallow and set upon sand. The result is a book that embarrasses Portland's planners with their own data and takes the argument to national applications. He spares none of the icons, showing how higher densities, rail transit, and anti-automobile strategies threaten the very future of the American city and the American way of life.

The book contains considerable amounts of quantitative information, much of which has been developed from primary sources by the author. This is a compelling compendium that positions itself as the leading rational work in the field of smart growth.

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