The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles

Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, D. J. Waldie
The failed or half-finished plans of the last 30 years are Fulton's proof that L.A. became a regional city only reluctantly, with the sputtering out of the old "growth machine" of suburban development. Fulton believes the region's discontinuities should be mended by a new consensus and managed by region-wide governments with the political will to carry out plans on the scale of a William Mulholland, Henry Huntington or Otis Chandler.


—Kevin Starr, California State Librarian and author of Material Dreams: Los Angeles through the 1920s
"William Fulton is the Raymond Chandler of Los Angeles real estate."


Review
"One of the most entertaining and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time about urban growth and change... Important reading for anyone interested in contemporary urban development. [Fulton] tells a story that may sound uniquely Los Angeles, but really applies to every growing city in America."--Richard Peiser, APA Journal


—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A surprisingly lively case study of the battles and alliances of politics, business and people that formed—or deformed—a great American city."


Review
" The Reluctant Metropolis is a welcome addition to the growing literature of place. Bill Fulton brings verve and lucidity to the politics of land use, a mega-issue ready to explode in the years ahead."--James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere


Book Description
In twelve engaging essays, William Fulton chronicles the history of urban planning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, tracing the legacy of short-sighted political and financial gains that has resulted in a vast urban region on the brink of disaster. Looking at such diverse topics as shady real estate speculations, the construction of the Los Angeles subway, the battle over the future of South Central L.A. after the 1992 riots, and the emergence of Las Vegas as "the new Los Angeles," Fulton offers a fresh perspective on the city's epic sprawl. The only way to reverse the historical trends that have made Los Angeles increasingly unliveable, Fulton concludes, is to confront the prevailing "cocoon citizenship," the mind-set that prevents the city's inhabitants and leaders from recognizing Los Angeles's patchwork of communities as a single metropolis.


From the Publisher
***"A surprisingly lively case study of the battles and alliances of politics, business and people that formed—or deformed—a great American city." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The Reluctant Metropolis is a welcome addition to the growing literature of place. Bill Fulton brings verve and lucidity to the politics of land use, a mega-issue ready to explode in the years ahead."—James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere "One of the most entertaining and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time about urban growth and change . . . Important reading for anyone interested in contemporary urban development. [Fulton] tells a story that may sound uniquely Los Angeles, but really applies to every growing city in America."—Richard Peiser, APA Journal


About the Author
William Fulton is an urban planning expert and the editor and publisher of California Planning & Development Report and author of The Regional City: Planning for the End of Sprawl (with Peter Calthorpe), Guide to California Planning, and California: Land and Legacy.


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One of the most entertaining and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time about urban growth and change . . . Important reading for anyone interested in contemporary urban development. [Fulton] tells a story that may sound uniquely Los Angeles, but really applies to every growing city in America. —APA Journal


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