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Book Review: I read The Country in the City after learning author Richard Walker had interviewed many local environmental activists, including CGF’s Lennie Roberts and Mary Davey. I also wanted to learn more about Silicon Valley, where I have spent my life. I have seen the Bay area population almost double, two freeways reach completion, several bust and boom cycles, and still I am surrounded by hills that are largely undeveloped, a bay and ocean that are largely accessible to everyone and clean enough to swim in. Natural, accessible open space is not available in most metropolitan areas and I wanted to know how these natural resources became public resources. I found many answers in this well-researched book. It is clear Mr. Walker spent a lot of time researching records and interviewing many people to find out who started the organizations that created so many different methods to save open space and restore the bay and foothills. I learned that environmental organizations founded by local activists applied grassroots pressure and put voter propositions on the ballot to establish special districts and land trusts to ensure this area stays beautiful and open. I was also left with a sense of how large the conservation goals of the last 100 years have been and how hard our activists have worked to attain even a portion of those goals. I do wish that there were more interviews in the book. I was left wondering why these people had chosen to give their time and energy to open space and saving the bay. There are so many worthwhile causes to give time and energy to — so what motivated them towards open space preservation? The Country in the City was an interesting read that left me feeling very lucky to live in a place where people were planning to keep it beautiful long before it was the world-famous Silicon Valley. — Wendee Crofoot Published Summer 2007 in Green Footnotes. Page last updated September 13, 2010. |
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