The Wall Street Journal

Suburbia, the preferred way of life across the advanced capitalist world, is under an unprecedented attack--one that seeks to replace single-family residences and shopping centers with an "anti-sprawl" model beloved of planners and environmental activists. The latest battleground is Los Angeles, which gave birth to the suburban metropolis. Many in the political, planning and media elites are itching to use the regulatory process to turn L.A. from a sprawling collection of low-rise communities into a dense, multistory metropolis on the… more

Sprawl: A Compact History By Robert Bruegmann University of Chicago Press, 264 pages, $27.50

For at least half a century, academics, aesthetes and all-purpose agonizers have looked at our ever-sprawling cities with disdain and even horror. The spectacle of rings and rings of humankind nested in single-family homes has inspired in them all sorts of revulsion and, relatedly, a whole discipline of blame: suburban sprawl has been faulted for exacerbating racial tension, contributing to energy shortages, worsening pollution and heating up… more

The French political response to the continuing riots has focused most on the need for more multicultural "understanding" of, and public spending on, the disenchanted mass in the country's grim banlieues (suburbs). What has been largely ignored has been the role of France's economic system in contributing to the current crisis. State-directed capitalism may seem ideal for such American admirers such as Jeremy Rifkin, author of The European Dream, and others on the left. Yet it is precisely this highly… more

In the past four weeks we have seen two different governmental responses to disaster, one efficient, the other, frankly, disastrous. Providence has spared Houston and much of urban east Texas, but that city's response to Hurricane Rita--and the comparison with New Orleans--should give us pause in thinking not only about how we deal with the mess left behind by Katrina, but also the future of the Gulf Coast.

In 2001, the director of Louisiana State University's hurricane center described New… more

To the water-soaked citizenry of New Orleans, short term issues--water, power, even surviving--are no doubt paramount today. But over the coming weeks, months and years, this city must come to grips with issues that have determined whether urban areas thrive despite tragedy, or simply decline in its wake.

Like the Mississippi itself, cities have risen and fallen through history. Herodotus noted in his own time, the 5th century B.C., that "human prosperity never abides long in the same place." Many of… more

Patricia Jones remembers when, as a 20-something aspiring actress, she first arrived in Southern California from Michigan. Her friends urged her to move to the bright lights of Hollywood or the hip, arty precincts of Santa Monica. But Ms. Jones, seeking "peace and quiet" instead, chose Thousand Oaks, a bedroom suburb then a 30- to 40-minute drive northwest of Los Angeles.

Thousand Oaks indeed was quiet, but also, she recalls, "a bit boring," with little in the way of cultural… more

The U.S. military, with help from Kurdish-dominated Iraqi national guard units, has done its part in taking Fallujah. But the war against the insurgency will not be won by military means alone. The ultimate objective is political: drawing Iraq's Sunni Arabs into elections and the constitutional process that will follow. The only route to a peaceful Iraq runs through negotiations -- and those must include all the country's major groups, not only those who have already agreed to attempt federal… more

This city known for makeovers is getting ready to try a big one for its downtown. On Grand Avenue, near the much ballyhooed Disney Hall and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, city leaders earlier this month announced plans for a $1.2 billion redevelopment project complete with massive retail, residential and commercial space. The goal, as seen by billionaire Eli Broad, the plan's biggest booster, would be to transform now doughty Grand Avenue into something of an Angeleno version of Paris's elegant Champs… more

Trying to understand American society without grappling with the idea of assimilation is a little like studying the cardiovascular system while ignoring the heart. Assimilation has been central to the American experience since the first European colonists arrived on these shores. And for just as long its definition has been a source of contention and confusion. In 1782, the Frenchman J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur waxed poetic about this new nation, where individuals from different backgrounds "are melted into… more

The ultimate test of success in Iraq will be the creation of a stable constitutional democracy: government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. If the Iraqis emerge from the coalition occupation with the building blocks of just and effective self-government, the war and occupation will be forgiven. The presence -- or absence -- of weapons of mass destruction will become a historical footnote. Muslims who today remain deeply skeptical of U.S. motives will grudgingly have to acknowledge that the… more