Green Metropolis
Amazon: Top Ten Outdoors and Nature Books of 2009
Christian Science Monitor: Best Books of 2009
Publishers Weekly: Best Books of 2009
The 10 Best Books of 2009 for Book Clubs
Plantetizen: Top 10 Books of 2010
Progressive Book Club: 10 Books to Help You Understand the Climate Crisis
Barron's: "this season's list of economics books worth reading," by Gene Epstein. (12/12/2009)
Amazon.com Editors' Pick for Best Mind-Changing Manifesto: "Owen makes a sharp, contrarian case that the most environmentally friendly place in America is not that back-to-the-land rural retreat but the loud, dirty, and relentlessly efficient concrete island of Manhattan."
Design Group: Reviewed by Timothy Beatley. (5/10/1010)
Fast Company: Article by Gred Lindsay. "Demolishing Density in Detroit." (3/5/2010)
Architectural Record: Reviewed by Robert Ivy. "In chapter after chapter, Owen punctures our myths surrounding the green movement with laser-guided precision in the hopes of clearing the air." (March 2010)
Boston Globe: Reviewed by Anthony Flint. "In the tradition of fellow New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell, Owen is in the business of explaining the counterintuitive. . . . 'Green Metropolis' is an important contribution to our understanding of how we live." (11/18/2009)
Hartford Courant: Reviewed by Tom Condon. "'Green Metropolis' is a marvelously clear-eyed analysis of the growing energy/environmental crisis." (11/8/2009)
San Francisco Chronicle: Reviewed by Margaret Mittelbach. "This stimulating re-examination of 'green' will inspire people and policymakers to reconsider their assumptions about what is and isn't good for the environment--not to mention the true cost of the way we all live." (11/5/2009)
TerraPass: Reviewed by Adam Stein. "David Owen finds a green paradise hiding in plain sight." (10/24/2009)
NPR, "Books We Like": Reviewed by Heller McAlpin. "David Owen is going to generate significant heat with Green Metropolis, his provocative manifesto that inverts many of our sacred assumptions about environmentalism." (9/23/2009)
Washington Post: Reviewed by Jonathan Yardley. "The deservedly respected journalist David Owen spent a lot of time in recent years patrolling the environmental beat, doing research for the excellent book we now have before us." ( 9/20/2009)
The Atlantic, "The Green Case for Cities": Reviewed by Witold Rybczynski. "[B]eing truly green means returning to the kinds of dense cities and garden suburbs Americans built in the first half of the 20th century. A tall order—but after the binge of the last housing boom, many Americans might be ready to consider a little downsizing." (October 2009)
Christian Science Monitor: Green Metropolis raises "questions that should be part of the ongoing dialogue about the health of our planet." (9/16/2009)
New York Times Sunday Book Review: Reviewed by Elizabeth Royte. "Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and use less energy to heat their homes (because those homes tend to share walls); and they’re less likely to accumulate a lot of large, energy-sucking appliances." (9/13/2009)
Village Voice Fall Book Picks: "This wise eco-urbanist manifesto explains, among other counterintuitive facts, why Manhattan is the greenest city in the U.S. Owen, a veteran staff writer for The New Yorker, is adept at debunking the increasingly accepted notions that urban parks, ethanol, and locavorism are "green." His portrayal of New York City as a kind of conservationist utopia amid vast rural wastefulness lands yet another blow on the myth of small-town values." (9/8/2009)
San Francisco Chronicle notable fall book (9/6/2009) In These Times Reviewed by Will Boisvert (8/21/2009)
Publishers Weekly starred review: "While the conventional wisdom condemns it as an environmental nightmare, Manhattan is by far the greenest place in America, argues this stimulating eco-urbanist manifesto....Owen’s lucid, biting prose crackles with striking facts that yield paradigm-shifting insights. The result is a compelling analysis of the world’s environmental predicament that upends orthodox opinion and points the way to practical solutions." (6/1/2009)
Blog Conversation
Interview with Jeff Speck, co-author of The Smart Growth Manual (April 2010)
Freakonomics By James McWilliams (3/19/2010)
Private Equity Hub (1/20/2010)
American Society of Landscape Architects (1/15/2010)
Seattle Post Intelligencer, Bus Chick (12/30/2009)
Faith Middleton Show, Connecticut Public Radio (12/29/2009)
Narrow Streets: Los Angeles "a fantasy urban makeover in photographs" (12/27/2009)
Burbank Library Best Books of 2009 (12/19/09)
In Which Our Hero (12/19/2009)
Podcast of talk at Skyscraper Museum (12/15/2009)
Huffington Post By F. Kaid Benfield (12/14/2009)
Global Policy Memo By Josh Goodman (12/12/2009)
Steve Goddard's History Wire (12/10/2009)
London Evening Standard By Simon Jenkins (12/8/2009)
From Amsterdam (12/7/2009)
The Uptown Urbanist (12/6/2009)
Plain Dealer Two out of three Cleveland radio guests recommend "Green Metropolis." (12/5/2009)
Englewood Review of Books reviewed by Brent Aldrich. "'Green Metropolis' is a significant and important book for shifting the dialogue around conventional conversations about urban sustainability." (12/4/2009)
Progressive Book Club "Book Talk Radio" with Majora Carter and Ilyse Hogue (12/1/2009)
Questions and Answers at Firedoglake.com (11/21/2009)
Between the Lines Public Radio interview by Valerie Jackson at Carter Library, Atlanta (11/19/2009)
Full house at Carter Library (11/13/2009)
Baby Got Books (11/11/2009)
Progressive Book Club Video interview with David Owen (11/5/2009)
TerraPass Followup comment from Adam Stein. "Access to supermarkets is more important than access to farms" (11/03/2009)
Digital Millwright (10/28/2009)
TreeHugger (10/26/09)
Yale Environment 360 (10/26/2009)
The environmental value of jaywalking (10/20/2009)
Connecticut Public Radio, "Where We Live" (10/13/2009)
The Guardian, "Forget This Leafy Fantasy" (10/8/2009)
Portland Biker, "Vaporous Buzzwords and Book Giveaways" (10/6/2009)
Parsons the New School for Design (9/30/2009)
Real Change News "Our Destiny is Density," interview with David Owen by Adam Hyla (9/30/2009)
Huffington Post, "Village Green: What the City Can Teach the Country about Sustainability" (also on the NRDC's Switchboard) (9/29/2009)
The Village Voice's Runnin' Scared (9/28/2009)
Time.com: Why New York City is Greener Than Vermont (9/24/2009)
Amazon's Omnivoracious: "Omni Daily Crush" (9/23/2009)
The conventional view of sustainability: Portland's Environmental Blog (9/20/2009)
Zócalo Public Square (9/15/2009
Shareable:Ecosystem (9/14/2009)
The New Yorker's News Desk: David Owen on The Risk and Reward of Manhattan's Density (9/11/2009)
Localplan.org By Josh O'Conner (9/8/2009)
The Sharable Beast (8/26/2009)
Greenhoof: Tim Halbur on sprawl, propaganda, and Obama's approach to urban issues (8/20/2009)