Xtra

The cities will be part of the country; I shall live 30 miles from my office in one direction, under a pine tree; my secretary will live 30 miles away from it too, in the other direction, under another pine tree. We shall both have our own car. We shall use up tires, wear out road surfaces and gears, consume oil and gasoline. All of which will necessitate a great deal of work ... enough for all." -Le Corbusier, The Radiant City (1967)


The Traditional Neighborhood vs. Suburban Sprawl
(the American Way!)
America, as usual, in opposition to the rest of the world, has taken the "less traveled" road to suburban sprawl. While the rest of the world continues a trend to the traditional neighborhood (Celebration, Florida remains one of America's few examples), America uproots and finds, as LeCorbusier points out, a pine tree further and further away. We don't fix up what's run down, we just leave.

But what is suburban sprawl? It can be defined in five components: the housing development (which developers insist are communities or villages, and yet what village has no commercial hub?); strip malls and megacenters; office parks; civic centers; and roads.


While urban renewal is a professed goal in cities from DC to Orlando, linear growth seems nearly exponential. We have gone from the traditional neighborhood to urban sprawl in a mere 50 years (but we can do it in less). Urban sprawl is a creation of two simple components: mortgaging and the interstate, both post war inventions and a big part of realizing the American dream.

We've learned a lot about the past, recently, and about how people, over the years, don't really change that much. BUT...Prompt: Where are we headed? Disney tried his hand at the future in 1955 when he created Tommorowland in the Magic Kingdom, and he wasn't the first to predict the future wrong. The NY World's Fair of 1939 and '40 had more of the same in terms of inaccurate prescience (pre-shence, look it up). Yesterday's Tommorows look silly (albeit pretty cool), but there has been little that has come to pass.

But where ARE we headed? Will it be more urban sprawl, migrations back into the cities or to the moon? Will we, like starchildren, soon abandon our bodies and live soley in cyberspaces? Whatever you predict, it's bound to be wrong, so give it a shot. What's the future? When your grandkids come over, where will you live?

This is the last extra credit for the marking period and further contemplation into the 2040 thing (Seniors, you should remember this; Juniors you will understand on friday). Write me an interesting and profound, well thought out, essay and I will award you as many as 20 extra credit points. Some of you need it. It's enough to turn a C test grade into an A! You may put the essay in your journals.