In another strange pastime of mine, I happen to really enjoy reading books about urban planning, touched off by what I felt to be a groundbreaking book by Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities.

The book describes in dry, yet powerful detail, how Jacobs' felt about modernist planners who "destroy communities and innovative economies by creating isolated, unnatural urban spaces." Instead, Jacobs argued for a dense and mixed-use urban aesthetic that would preserve the uniqueness inherent in individual -- like certain neighborhoods in New York City.

Whether or not you agree with Jacobs, suburbia did provide many families with clean surroundings and bigger houses and amenities (not to mention a longer commute). Today's New York Times looks at ways to take the best of suburbia and try to reinvent the concept.

In an article called "Can we uninvent suburbia?" Andrew Revkin looks at what a variety of different voices are saying about the matter, including:

• The End of Suburbia, an award-winning 2006 documentary, provides a fascinating overview of how the sprawled lifestyle evolved, the hidden -- and not so hidden -- costs, and what lies ahead.
• An article in the Sunday version of the Times that calculates the environmental costs of suburbia.
• A great link to a website that follows "dead malls" as part of a process Revkin calls "retrofitting."

As elections are getting closer and closer, it will be interesting to see what vision of America the American voters stand behind.

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

How to make suburbia work again in America originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.