No Communication with the Sea: Searching for an Urban Future in the Great Basin - Softcover

Sullivan, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816528950 ISBN 13: 9780816528950

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 2010

Synopsis

Few other places in the United States are as high, dry, sparsely inhabited—and urbanized—as the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. The great majority of the population of this rapidly growing region lives in the two metropolitan areas at its edges, Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front, and Reno and the Truckee Meadows. These cities embody the allure and the challenge of the contemporary American West, deemed by some “The New American Heartland.”

No Communication with the Sea is a journey through this urbanizing Great Basin landscape. Here, the land fosters illusions of limitless space and resources, but its space and resources are severely limited; its people live clustered in cities but are often reluctant to embrace urbanity. These tensions led journalist and urban planner Tim Sullivan to explore the developing centers and edges of the Great Basin cities and the ways some are trying to build livable and sustainable urban environments.

In this highly readable book of creative nonfiction, Sullivan employs a variety of methods—including interviews, research, travelogues, and narrative—to survey the harsh landscape for clues to the ways cities can adapt to their geography, topography, ecology, hydrography, history, and culture. No Communication with the Sea embarks on a quest for a livable future for the heart of the interior West. In the process, it both unearths the past and ponders the present and future Great Basin cities.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Few other places in the United States are as high, dry, sparsely inhabited--and urbanized--as the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. Sullivan embarks on a quest for a livable future for the heart of the interior West and in the process he both unearths the past and ponders the present and future of Great Basin cities.

About the Author

Tim Sullivan has reported for several western newspapers and magazines, including the Salt Lake Tribune and the Oregonian, and now works as an urban planner and designer. A native of Salt Lake City, he currently lives in Oakland, California.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0816528950
• ISBN 13: 9780816528950
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 240