The War on Urbanism

Daniel Lazare's America's Undeclared War: What's Killing Our Cities and How We Can Stop It carries a rather sensationalist title, but drives home a good deal of hardheaded historical analysis before succumbing to some woolly proposals. Lazare exposes antiurban bias from Jefferson through the Progressive movement, Fordism, Mumford (!) and their latter-day heirs. His take on the Progressives is revelatory: their distaste for urban "squalor" and their do-gooder program of uplift make me reach for my Mencken. He is right to chastise acclaimed urbanist Jane Jacobs for her anti-political mentality: her "microscopic approach was both her strength and her undoing." His critique of the Constitution, which references his previous work The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution is Paralyzing Democracy, warrants further inquiry. But he falls prey to an ungrounded exaltation of democracy that almost derails his sometimes sensible solutions.