Author’s Book on L.A. Hits Bestseller List

The subject of William Fulton’s new book would usually be thought of as bestseller-proof. But “The Reluctant Metropolis,” subtitled “The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles,” debuted on the bestseller list this month.

“There’s no sex it it, but I managed to mention O.J. twice,” said Fulton, who agreed that city planning and community growth seldom snag an author a spot on a list dominated more often by Danielle Steel or Robert Fulghum.

The Ventura resident posed for a picture recently near what he says is one of the best things about his hometown: City Hall.

“If there is any one building that makes Ventura a place, that’s it,” Fulton said. “It’s everything a beautiful building should be. It’s on a hill. It overlooks the ocean. It’s just spectacularly beautiful. [Such buildings] create definable places.”

A sense of place is a recurring theme in Fulton’s writings. In the introduction to his new book, he writes wryly about what a Californian’s sense of place often means:

”. . . It was just another suburb of Los Angeles. It wasn’t really a part of where I live. It was too filled with cars and shopping centers and commuting suburbanites who didn’t fit the ambiguously anti-urban image I had of the town where I live. Like everybody else in metropolitan Los Angeles, I just wanted to get home to my own tract.”

Although Los Angeles is in the book’s title, the life, times and planning decisions of Ventura County figure regularly into Fulton’s observations. One chapter is even called “The Education of Maria VanderKolk.” VanderKolk, many may remember, won a seat as a Ventura County supervisor from Thousand Oaks in June 1990, in one of the county’s more stunning election upsets.

Fulton’s previous book, “Guide to California Planning,” has become a textbook in undergraduate schools. He also publishes the monthly “California Planning and Development Report” newsletter, teaches occasional courses in planning and real estate development at UC Santa Barbara and writes regular magazine and newspaper articles on government and urban planning.

At night, he goes home to his tract house in Ventura, where he lives with his artist wife, Victoria, and their daughter, Sara.