toward policy innovations that, if not relied upon exclusively, could protect public interests at a time of rapid rural change. — Laura Stuchinsky Protecting Open Space: Land Use Control in the Adirondack Park, by Richard A. Liroff and G. Gordon Davis, 1981, $32.50 hardcover from: Ballinger Publishing Co. 17 Dunster Street, Harvard Square Cambridge, MA 02138 The Adirondack Park is an undeveloped mountainous scenic area in New York state, about equal in size to the state of Vermont. During the late 1800s many of the successful entrepreneurs of the period built luxurious rustic camps in the Adi- rondacks. Today it is still a region with many well-off summer visitors and a depressed rural economy in the winter. In 1894 the voters of New York passed an amendment to the state Constitution saying that the state-owned lands in Adirondack Park would be "forever kept as wild forest land." Only 39% of the land within Park boundaries is state-owned; the rest is privately-owned, and there are numerous villages within the Park. For many years, however, there was no conflict between state and private interests there. In the early '70s, frightened by a fastgrowing market for second homes within the Park, New York created the Adirondack Park Agency to prepare a development plan. Protecting Open Space is the story of the Adirondack Park Agency, the plan it drew up, its successes emd failures. It is a bit dry and academic for my taste, but anyone interested in land use plarming will find it a valuable case study. And anyone familiar with land use planning in other places will find that both the successes and failures soimd familiar. The success is that the Adiron- dacks are being preserved as a scenic area, and several large developments that were in the works are no longer planned. The failures include a tremendous amount of wasted energy and heartache along the way — people who started projects and found the rules had changed midstream, local citizens who felt their needs and desires were totally ignored. At one point a load of manure was dumped on the agency's front stoop with a sign saying, "We've taken yours for three years, now take ours." This book is valuable because it takes an openminded position. Some problems with the Adirondack Park Agency could have been avoided; maybe next time they will be. — Elaine Zablocki Elaine is a freelance writer covering political issues in Oregon. Her primary focus is land use planning. Good Things Life at the Grassroots, 1981, 87 pp., $1.30 from: Guoji Shudian P.O.Box 399 Beijing, China An excellent primer on government pwli- des and local self-help problem solving in China, Life at the Grassroots also indudes many personal profiles to illustrate the attitudes and daily concerns of Chinese laborers, officials, retired seniors and yoimg people. We meet members of a commune in east central China, workers in a bicycle factory in Shanghai, and herdsmen in a grassland district of Iimer Mongolia. Of special interest is a description of the work of a neighborhood association in Beijing: members, who are elected by the people in their own community and serve without pay, p)erform the usual functions familiar to their American counterparts — and also act as marriage counselors, mediate legal disputes among neighbors, and inform each household when it is time for everyone to start killing mosquitos! This book provides us an absorbing grassroots view of China at a bargain price. — John Ferrell Alternative Americas, Mildred J. Loomis, 1982,175 pp., $7.95 tom: Universe Books 381 Park Avenue South New York, NY10016 Now in her eighties, Mildred Loomis was a longtime assodate of land trust pioneer Ralph Borsodi (see "This Land Was Made for You and Me" in last month's RAIN) and still serves as director of education at the School of Living. In Alternative Americas, a revised version of her 1980 book Decentralism, she traces the historical roots of many movements for change: intentional communities, cooperative businesses, organic agricultiue, holistic health and appropriate technology. The best parts of the book are Loomis' accounts of her own experiences with some of the more fascinating figures of the last half century: Borsodi, Organic Gardening publisher J. I. Rodale (father of Robert), owner-builder proponent Ken Kem, Community Service, Inc. founder Arthur E. Morgan and many others. Alternative Americas reminds us that many of today's movements for change are deeply rooted in American tradition. —John Ferrell From: L\fe at the Grassroots
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