The Salvaged City

From Pulitzer Prize-winning design critic Alexandra Lange, a beguiling look at the waste-not architecture of the 1970s—and the consequences of leaving it behind.

In 1977, Jimmy Carter sat by a fire and urged Americans to lower their thermostats, “live thriftily,” and help their neighbors. Modest personal sacrifice, he said, would pave the way to a prosperous future. Ronald Reagan would win the next presidential election decisively, arguing that Americans should never have to just make do. The country rode that consumerist ideal into the twenty-first century, with disastrous results.

In this remarkable new examination of the grassroots environmentalism of the 1970s, Alexandra Lange introduces us to movements that grew through the concrete of post-Vietnam War austerity: photographers fanning out to document the beauty and degradation of the environment, dreamers building domes and writing manuals for living lightly on the land, homesteaders taking up residence in abandoned buildings as “urban pioneers.”

The do-it-yourself solutions of a bygone era show us the richness and abundance that can be found in our own. Taking us on a vibrant tour of the 1970s, The Salvaged City follows everyday Americans making use of unexpected resources to build a better, more sustainable world.