It's less talked about than many of the other changes with our new administration, but among us city types, the fact that we have a president who chose to live in a city, has worked on urban issues, and, not to put too fine a point on it, generally doesn't think cities are cesspools that need to be cleaned out with some good small-town values, has been a source of much hope.
Not to mention that in the current economy, living next to a public transit stop is looking better and better, even to country mice.
So in the spirit of a new urban renaissance, isn't it time to teach your toddler about smart growth and the urban-rural transect? Time to put "city planner" on their list of possible professions next to firefighter and doctor?
Tim Hailbur and Chris Steins, of the online planning clearinghouse Planetizen, thought so at least, and they've just released Where Things Are from Near to Far to fill that niche.
Making fun kids books on very specific and fairly adult topics is a challenge. Where Things Are, despite purporting to answer questions like "Who put that building there?" and "What's a city planner?" makes what I think is the wise decision to actually focus on a simple tour through the differences between a downtown, a city neighborhood, a suburb, the country, and a wilderness.
The drawings are fun and my going-on-three-year-old city girl digs it (although I actually found myself unable to give her an example of someone we knew who lived in the kind of sprawling suburb depicted. This made me unreasonably happy). In fact, I wanted that part of the book to be larger (how about some dense streetcar suburbs, or some exurban developments?).
It peters out at the end, with our main character's mom, an urban planner who has been conducting the tour, taking credit for the whole shebang (in suddenly more hokey rhymes) without actually giving any useful information about how she does her job. Alas. Not that I think the details of development politics and policies belong here, but in that case I might have left well enough alone on the "who" front. (On the other hand, I could imagine a few pages on mapping and permitting that could be made simple and interesting. Then again we have a custom-made map of our neighborhood in the corner of our living room for my daughter, so my perspective may be off.)
Still, the fact is, kids read an awful lot about farms and kids with large yards and then occasionally something about downtown blocks: having a short, neutral little introduction to how they fit together is worthwhile. I think Where Things Are From Near to Far is something I'll recommend to my local librarian.
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