The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books) | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Walker
Creator: William Cronon
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $22.39
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 788786
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 404
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.3
ISBN: 0295987014
Dewey Decimal Number: 712.097946
EAN: 9780295987019
ASIN: 0295987014
Publication Date: May 15, 2007
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Product Description
The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the world's most beautiful cities. Despite a population of 7 million people, it is more greensward than asphalt jungle, more open space than hardscape. A vast quilt of countryside is tucked into the folds of the metropolis, stitched from fields, farms and woodlands, mines, creeks, and wetlands. In The Country in the City, Richard Walker tells the story of how the jigsaw geography of this greenbelt has been set into place. The Bay Areas civic landscape has been fought over acre by acre, an arduous process requiring popular mobilization, political will, and hard work. Its most cherished environmentsMount Tamalpais, Napa Valley, San Francisco Bay, Point Reyes, Mount Diablo, the Pacific coasthave engendered some of the fiercest environmental battles in the country and have made the region a leader in green ideas and organizations. This book tells how the Bay Area got its green grove: from the stirrings of conservation in the time of John Muir to origins of the recreational parks and coastal preserves in the early twentieth century, from the fight to stop bay fill and control suburban growth after the Second World War to securing conservation easements and stopping toxic pollution in our times. Here, modern environmentalism first became a mass political movement in the 1960s, with the sudden blooming of the Sierra Club and Save the Bay, and it remains a global center of environmentalism to this day. Green values have been a pillar of Bay Area life and politics for more than a century. It is an environmentalism grounded in local places and personal concerns, close to the heart of the city. Yet this vision of what a city should be has always been informed by liberal, even utopian, ideas of nature, planning, government, and democracy. In the end, green is one of the primary colors in the flag of the Left Coast, where green enthusiasms, like open space, are built into the fabric of urban life. Written in a lively and accessible style, The Country in the City will be of interest to general readers and environmental activists. At the same time, it speaks to fundamental debates in environmental history, urban planning, and geography.
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A fine pick for any collection interested in urban planning, ecology, or Bay Area history alike. December 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
THE COUNTRY IN THE CITY: THE GREENING OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA should be a 'most' for any San Francisco Bay Area or comprehensive California library, whether it be a college-level or public lending collection. Students of California history and geography alike will appreciate this story of how the Bay Area's greenbelt was planned into an urban environment - and how each piece of it was fought for. From environmental battles which spread out to affect urban policies across the country to the involvement of businesses and individuals like, THE COUNTRY IN THE CITY is packed with insights on how early conservation affects today's urban environment, making it a fine pick for any collection interested in urban planning, ecology, or Bay Area history alike.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Green Activism, Bay Area Style September 29, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book really helped me understand the world I was born into--Berkeley in the late 1950s. As Richard Walker points out, that world reflected the work of countless Bay Area activists reaching back to John Muir. Many were civic-minded and dedicated women, and some started or built environmental organizations with national impact. This book describes it all: the people, the organizations, the issues, the victories (always temporary), the challenges, and the movement's shortcomings and unintended consequences.
Always attuned to class issues, Walker acknowledges that these movements were mostly led by upper-class folks and ultimately turned parts of the Bay Area (e.g., Marin) into lightly populated enclaves for the well off. Working families in the Bay Area have had great access to public parks and the coast, but activists so far have done little to impede the siting of toxic nastiness in low-income neighborhoods. Walker questions the link between efforts to slow or stop growth and the Bay Area's high housing prices, but he notes that the growth that has occurred--in the eastern part of Contra Costa County and the San Joaquin Valley, for example--isn't very smart and may be linked to the inner Bay Area's aversion to virtually any growth at all. At the end of the day, though, it's hard to resist Walker's conclusion that Bay Area residents have plenty to be thankful for. Highly recommended.
Back to the Land August 23, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Professor Walker's book is a solidly researched, comprehensive history of the environmental movement in the Bay Area. Written in a clear, accessible style, the book covers a century of landsaving, from the early days of the Sierra Club to the exciting years from 1965-75 when most of our environmental protection laws were passed, to the recent use of land trusts , conservation easements, and urban growth boundaries to safeguard the Bay Area's precious green heritage. This book will stand, along with John Hart's "Legacy" and Amy Meyer's "New Guardians for the Golden Gate" as the canonical texts in the environmental history of California for years to come.
Inspiring! Understand how the Bay Area came to be such a terrific place to live August 22, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
While this book was a bit academic and long on details, I found it a pleasant and easy read. I am a Bay Area resident and a NYC transplant and have marveled at the accessibility of the Bay Area's natural beauty and recreation.
I love the SF Bay Area for its beauty and outdoors and I wanted to know how it happened and who to thank. Now I know.
Another book worth considering, which is much more specific to the creation of one area is New Guardians for the Golden Gate: How America Got a Great National Park
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