The Long Tomorrow

No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile, shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America. --Constitution of the United States. Thiertieth Amendment Two generations after the Destruction, rumors persisted about a secret desert hideaway where scientists worked with dangerous machines and where men plotted to revive the cities. Almost a continent away, Len Coulter heard whisperings that hired hist imagination. Then one day he found a strange wooden box... By far Leigh Brackett's best novel... a great work of science fiction. --The New York Times