Development Ideals Design for Human Ecosystems by John Tillman Lyle; Van Nostrand Reinhold; New York, N.Y.; 1985; 269 pages; $39.95 hardcover. When I left California for New England many years ago the public was on the verge of a major debate over development of the state's lengthy and scenic coastline. Opinion was polarized between the environmentalists who cried for no development, and the developers who seemed to want to turn the edge of the Pacific into suburbia. There seemed to be little middle ground, despite the well-publicized — but only partially successful — example of Sea Ranch, an ecologically designed development north of San Francisco. The question, it seems to me, is not whether to develop or not, but how to create
