Few other places in the United States are as high, dry, sparsely inhabited—and urbanized—as the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. The great majority of the population of this rapidly growing region
The author writes authoritatively and is a clear advocate for both the reshaping of cities and the new values that he feels will recreate and sustain them.
--Richard Francaviglia, author of Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin
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lives in the two metropolitan areas at its edges, Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front, and Reno and the Truckee Meadows. These cities embody the allure and the challenge of the contemporary American
West, deemed by some "The New American Heartland."
No Communication with the Sea is a journey through this urbanizing Great Basin landscape. Here, the land fosters illusions of
limitless space and resources, but its space and resources are severely limited; its people live clustered in cities but are often reluctant to embrace urbanity. These tensions led journalist and
urban planner Tim Sullivan to explore the developing centers and edges of the Great Basin cities and the ways some are trying to build livable and sustainable urban environments.
In this
highly readable book of creative nonfiction, Sullivan employs a variety of methods—including interviews, research, travelogues, and narrative—to survey the harsh landscape for clues to the ways
cities can adapt to their geography, topography, ecology, hydrography, history, and culture. No Communication with the Sea embarks on a quest for a livable future for the heart of the interior
West. In the process, it both unearths the past and ponders the present and future Great Basin cities.
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