Environmental Aesthetics: Ideas, Politics and Planning

Rating:
Summary: Workable Introduction to a New Field
Review: I used this book in an introduction to writing course at Portland Community College in Oregon. Students of various capacities were able to read and understand the text, and yet I found it beautifully written and scintillating. He is able to talk in a simple way about beauty and yet reference Coleridge, Kant, Burroughs (John) and many different academic geographers. We went through chapter by chapter and talked about the problems of aesthetics in Beaverton (a very ugly town, by the way, which was rapidly being developed into one of the ugliest towns in America). I've since moved to the Catskills because I simply couldn't watch what was happening in Oregon any further. One of the interesting things that Porteous does is give an overview of research in the field. Apparently, many different groups are trying to build a model of what is objectively beautiful in landscape such that certain lakes, mountains, and prairies can be preserved for future generations. Porteous' clear and vivid prose makes for wonderful reading. He is a published poet in addition to a geographer. He has, therefore, a scientific apprach but is capable of vivid evocative prose. The illustrations and photographs in the text provide a very thorough sense of examples for the deep themes running through the book. Porteous' thesis is that although there are many different kinds of people we all appreciate the same things. Although we manifest our concerns for beauty through various means -- activism, or scientific objectivity, or study, -- we can save what's good about our environment if we work together and can form bridges between various eco-factions. Porteous doesn't always make this thesis clear in the book. The most interesting aspect of the book are the legal implications of an objective assessment of landscape. We are not yet at the point of a thoroughly objective assessment of what is and what isn't beautiful (I know painters who love smokestacks for their cylindrical forms), but Porteous is working towards that. If it is achieved, then it will be easier to save certain areas. This is the best book I've read in the area, but have a lot to do yet before I've covered this extraordinarily exciting new field.
-- Kirby Olson