Niche marketing comes to the library. In her September 27 on-line newsletter “NeatNew and ExLibris” (marylaine.com), Marylaine Block lauds suburban Morton Grove’s “Webrary.” Among other things, it tries to make reading user-friendly by posting book lists that “really zero in on reader preferences,” such as “Asian Magical Realism for high school kids, Genealogy Mysteries, Little Old Lady Sleuths, Cat Mysteries…Bridget Jones Readalikes, Neal Stephenson Readalikes, Terry McMillan Readalikes…Sports (a very extensive and detailed list, sorted by individual sport).”
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The Chicago metropolitan area is the least sprawling midwestern region, while the Gary-Hammond area is the most, according to a new study sponsored by Smart Growth America, “Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact” (www.smartgrowthamerica.com). The authors define “sprawl” as areas with low residential density; separated homes, jobs, and services; weak activity centers and downtowns; and a poorly connected street network, with long blocks and culs-de-sac. On this four-factor scale, New York City scores 178 (the least sprawling area of the country), Chicago scores 121, and Gary-Hammond 77. The most sprawling city is Riverside-San Bernardino, California, at 14. The researchers found that people who live in sprawling places tend to drive more, walk less, use transit less, own more cars, and have higher maximum ozone levels than people in denser areas. Since the authors are working for an antisprawl group, they were obviously embarrassed to find that sprawl as they measured it has no effect–repeat, none–on traffic congestion.
“The recent arrival of [X] will not be the last, nor the deadliest, of [X] to invade the United States and attack American citizens, scientists warn. In fact, [X] is merely a wake-up call for what we will confront in future years
