Why do modern cities, suburbs, and industrial and farming landscapes all tend to look alike despite their regional settings?

In this generously illustrated and provocative book, a landscape architect argues that the monotony of the modern landscape is a reflection of indifference on the part of society to the diversity inherent in ecological systems and in human communities.

In case studies drawn from all parts of the world--Turkey and Hong Kong to northern England and Edinburgh, to Kentucky and Oregon, to Ontario and Manitoba--Michael Hough shows how build environments work and what designers can do to maintain the clearly identifiable differences between one place and another.