The Next American City BookThe internet is a fun and wacky place. Pictures of cats, funny memes, and sharing news stories are all part of what makes the internet great! Occasionally, you need to break away and curl up with a good book (either real pages or e-readers, we don’t judge). Being directly involved with one source of information is a better way to absorb an exciting story, or learn something new about our surroundings. At least Greenscape Geeks thinks so, and so we’re trying a little something different this week.

The Greenscape Geeks Book Club will be a recurring segment in which we mention a book we’re reading. In the following weeks (we’re fairly slow page flippers) another follow-up post will ask for some audience interaction! We’ll offer our musings on the book and ask some of you to do the same!

The subject matter will remain light for more straightforward reading but, as is the nature of being bookish, we’ll delve into some more in-depth topics related to urban development, community agriculture, permaculture, innovative landscaping, gardening, and much more. So, with no further ado, we offer up our first book: The Next American City: The Big Promise of Our Midsize Metros by Mick Cornett. Mick Cornett is the four-term mayor of Oklahoma City.

Dust jacket and forward highlights:
“Oklahoma City. Indianapolis [hey, we know that place!]. Charleston. Des Moines. What do these cities have in common? They are cities of modest size but outsized accomplishment, powered by a can-do spirit, valuing compromise over confrontation and progress over political victory. These are the cities leading America…and they’re not waiting for Washington’s help.”
“The Next American City is a story of civic engagement, inventive public policy, and smart urban design. It is a study of the changes reshaping American urban life–and a blueprint for those to come.”

Richard Florida writes, “What truly distinguishes America and really makes it great is the incredible diversity of its more than 350 metros areas and thousands of communities of various sizes and shapes. These are the true laboratories of democracy, where new and transformative ideas, strategies, and visions of the future bubble up.”

Enjoy the read and stay tuned to our social media channels in the coming weeks to tell us what you thought! See you between chapters, dear readers.

Greenscape Geeks is a central Indiana landscape architecture and landscape design, construction, and lawn maintenance company, serving Indianapolis (including Meridian Kessler, Herron Morton, Williams Creek, and Irvington), Carmel, Noblesville, Fishers, and Zionsville.