NYT's Brooks: Missing the Point

Some urban planning blogs have been dissecting that recent David Brooks NYT column that stated that Amsterdam was the model city and most Americans have a sweet hankering to settle down in places like Seattle and Orlando, while over at the NYT, they're getting letters to the editor: "David Brooks had holes in his thesis that you could send a light rail line through."--Alex Marshall, author of "How Cities Work." And another: "As an urban planner who just returned from a conference in Amsterdam, I was intrigued by David Brooks’s assertion that urban planners harbor a dream that America will someday look a little more like Amsterdam. Urban planners do not want to copy any community. Instead, we dream that Americans can exercise choice — a distinctly American value — when selecting a place to live and means of travel."---W. Paul Farmer, Chief Executive, American Planning Association. [NYT]