We never aimed for blight: An historical approach to the American environment

If we Americans never aimed for blight, why have we so often degraded our environment, depleted our resources, poisoned our water, and polluted our air? Greed and negligence, perhaps; and yet the histories Don Scherer collected tell a different story - a story of results foreseeable but unforeseen, predictable but unintended. To continue down the historical path toward our nation's environmental degradation will confound our hopes and thwart our aspirations. But, this outcome is by no means inevitable. We Never Aimed for Blight reveals the patterns that lead to degradation. And, once revealed, these avenues to disaster can be avoided. Though his historical analyses and case studies, Scherer's considerable accomplishment is to explain what causes environmental degradation and, at the same time, to give us the key to prevention and reversal.