Books by Kenneth R Schneider

Cities today are the weakest link of both democracy and modern affluence. Their explosive sprawl wastes land that promotes both urban social crises and environmental decay through mass auto movement on outrageously costly freeways--contradicting the inherent role of cities to minimize even the need to travel.The immense sprawl unnecessarily assures human isolation (with the consequent dependence upon television), undermines sustainable ecology, and abandons huge areas of the old inner city. Consequently cities are waste-generating environments that arbitrarily promote production and consumption for purposeless and endless economic growth that can never satisfy human "needs".As basic organizers of life in society, cities can become inspired environments of human development. But they must be built compactly to preserve large, accessible open spaces for recreation, parks, and natural areas. Then they can underwrite an unprecedented human efficiency comparable to productive efficiency.To build such cities, a major shift is required to control their structure and eliminate urban development as merely a promotional waste by real estate speculation. Urban development authorities are required to build cities through principles of land conservation, urban spaciousness, minimal need for transportation, human efficiency, and highly congenial human spaces.

After centuries of accelerating growth, the economy continues to be promoted for endless growth when the effects increasingly become economically counterproductive, ecologically devastating, and socially generated crises. Yet society, Kenneth Schneider demonstrates poignantly, continues to seek blind, endless, and reckless growth---leaving in waste vast human possibilities not attainable through personal expenditures. Once the standard of living reaches affluence, continued growth becomes increasingly destructive and economically suicidal, confining the human career to productions and wastefully generated consumption. As it expands, the economy increases its control over society, dominating urban form, education, the media, and social imagination. Rather than freeing people, the increased economic wealth offers vast promotional for business to control human behavior---note that advertising multiplied forty-fold from l950 to 2000. Schneider stresses how society must fundamentally redirect human thought and economic power to fulfill specific social purposes that constitutes human progress.

Kenneth Schneider's achievement...is to have written a highly intelligent book that is at the same time both stimulating and readable--a rare occurrence. Overall, this is one of the most thought-provoking books that I have read on our modern business-created society and the individual's place within this society.R. Joseph MonsenUniversity of WashingtonIt is a very good book indeed. ...Schneider has managed to choose most of the basic issues confronting our political order: these are the issues people ought to be thinking about. He has also managed to infuse each one with a high ethical content--something quite rare in the ordinary approach to these topics. The result is a serious, informed discussion that often achieves the level of what in olden times was honorably known as 'practical philosophy.'...There is an inarticulate demand for just this sort of thing.Harvey WheelerCenter for the Study of Democratic InstitutionsThe book reflects the author's unusual breadth of interest and reading, and his uncommon ability to synthesize. His topic is significant... He also shows insight into some complex and important problems. I was especially impressed by his reflections on the notion of community.Raymond Baumhart, S. J.

Kenneth Schneider's achievement . . . is to have written a highly intelligent book that is at the same time both stimulating and readable---a rare occurrence. Overall, this is one of the most thought-provoking books that I have read on our modern business-created society and the individual's place within this society.R. Joseph MonsenUniversity of WashingtonIt is a very good book indeed. . .Schneider has managed to choose most of the basic issues confronting our political order: these are the issues people ought to be thinking about. He has also managed to infuse each one with a high ethical content---something quite rare in the ordinary approach to these topics. The result is a serious, informed discussion that often achieves the level of what in olden times was honorably known as 'practical philosophy.' . . . There is an inarticulate demand for just this sort of thing.Harvey WheelerCenter for the Study of Democratic InstitutionsThe book reflects the author's unusual breadth of interest and reading, and his uncommon ability to synthesize. His topic is significant. . . . He also shows insight into some complex and important problems. I was especially impressed by his reflections on the notion of community.Raymond Baumhart, S. J.

American Communities centers upon a critical missing dimension of modern progress: an organizational equivalent to the corporation. The concept rests upon unified, integrated, socially beneficial community living that is comparable to a cruise ship on the inside and opens to a spacious recreational environment like a country club on the outside.This new Community "corporation" serves its members who control its services and programs, from health care and education to commerce and cultural programs. Its social spaces, built around interior plazas and promenades, offers efficient yet casual opportunities for community members to associate both freely and formally in a vast array of member behaviors.This community achieves a grand harmony of spaces and programs with closely, yet spaciously, organized facilities serving most daily needs of its members. The compactly organized spaces are necessary to achieve human-scale efficiency and casual interactions.The most critical principle is that urban spaciousness is possible only by compact development--what a city should be--which then immensely reduces the need for mechanized transport, especially the space consuming, distance promoting, and congestive nature of costly, wasteful automobiles.