The author views landscaping as an expression of a way of life. This collection of essays is written for the general reader and features articles without footnotes. The subject matter ranges from disquisitions on ordinary houses, yards, farms, and farmsteads to notes on ecology and from the impact of automobile use, mobile homes, shopping centers, and rural and urban planning to philosophical arguments about the meaning of human space and arguments for and against preservation.

Essays examine the way we perceive landscape, the effect of gardens and cities of the past on the landscapes of the present, and the way American architecture has broken with tradition. Discussion relates the importance of space to relativism throughout time.