This book expresses my ongoing fascination with the built environment. It is also a chance to incorporate many of the ideas I discuss in the course I teach in environmental psychology at Connecticut College. For those who are unfamiliar with the discipline of environmental psychology, it examines the relationship between human behavior and the environment. In the approach I take, I focus on the built environment (e.g., the benefits of high- vs. low-rise housing for the elderly), although a portion of the practitioners in this field focus on the natural environment. In this discipline, we often look at such traditional variables as crowding, personal space, and territoriality, or newer concerns such as recycling and sustainability. My approach to this topic has been somewhat different, focusing first on the facility type (e.g., health care facilities or schools) and then exploring a variety of behavioral manifestations within those building types, wherever the research led me.

What Americans Build and Why takes that “facility-first” approach; it presents chapters on five different types of facilities – our houses, health care facilities, schools, workplaces, and shops – essentially, places where Americans live their lives. Coverage of these topics combines research literature and popular media with personal reflection; I describe my approach as one of synthesis. Eminent environmental psychologist Robert Sommer described this approach best in his book on farmers markets of America when he said: “I have never believed that social research need be dull or celebration should ignore facts or figures.” I couldn't agree more.