CONFRONTING SPRAWL.

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Author: R.A.

The American landscape has certainly changed in the last few decades, and the fastest growing scenery seems to include the neon lights of burger joints, cookie-cutter housing developments and the asphalt parking lots of big-box retailers. This change has contributed to the already frenetic American lifestyle, to the point that people may not have had time to stop and think about what it means when the trees and the Main Streets disappear from their neighborhoods.

Two new books attempt to illustrate just how sprawl has changed the idea of community in America. In It's a Sprawl World After All (New Society Publishers, $17.95), author Douglas E. Morris contrasts his experiences with community in the United States and Europe. The desire for more personal space coupled with a heavy dependence on cars has not only reaped environmental havoc on American soil, Morris writes, but has also contributed to health and social problems that are far less common in Europe, where cities and towns are more condensed. Morris uses the second half of the book to suggest small and large-scale changes individuals, communities or governing powers can make to gain back control of sprawl and its effects.

Losing It All to Sprawl (University Press of Florida, $24.95) approaches the topic from a whole new avenue. Author Bill Belleville colorfully details his history in Florida, centering on the purchase and maintenance of a 1940s-era "Cracker" house. Belleville weaves tales of vivid scenery and feral neighbors with the environmental devastation that overcame his rural neighborhood as the realtors and bulldozers rolled in. "All of Florida is for sale," an interested real estate agent had explained to Belleville. Both these books seem to dare the reader: Now that you know, what are you going to do?

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By R.A.