This post is due by Tuesday, October 15 @ midnight. No credit given for late posts.
Read the assigned chapters above, and then:
1. Provide 3 SPECIFIC observations about Cars, Culture and Media you learned from EACH chapter of our book, using 2-3 sentences combining the book and your own IYOW analysis. (Yes, the Introduction counts.)
2. Finally, ask ONE specific question you have of Cars, Culture and Media after completing our reading.
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ReplyDeleteCh.1
ReplyDeleteOn page 10 Kunstler tells us "The newspaper headlines may shout about global warming, extinctions of living species, the devastation of rain forests, and other world-wide catastrophes, but Americans evince a striking complacency when it comes to their everyday environment and the growing calamity it represents" We have this sense of being removed, an in-here and out-there mindset. "Out there," in the rainforests, on the tropical reefs, is being destroyed by humans- that's easy to see. But what Kunstler challenges this notion we have of "In-here," namely our built landscape is somehow removed from the natural world, and it makes sense to us for humans to re arrange it. We're just not seeing how that rearrangement is bad.
"The developers, I'm told, had started out with different models before they settled on the split-levels, which were absolutely the latest thing and sold like hotcakes" (p.11). This is a good example of how our landscape came to be as it is. The developers aren't trying to customize the homes to better fit the landscape, nor are they trying to build homes which are efficient, they only build homes that are en vogue. The only real consideration what is "the latest thing," and as soon as something else becomes that thing, they simply abandon the first thing, as if it no longer exists.
On page 15 Kunstler tells us that sprawl has destroyed "such age-old social arrangements as the distinction between city life and country life." It is odd that in the places humans occupy, we no longer can distinguish between different areas. I think this alludes to Walter Benjamin's idea that in the age of photography, it doesn't make sense to ask for the negative, because each copy is exactly the same as the original-unlike a reproduction of a famous painting. If everywhere is built of prefabricated, "identical boxy split-levels" (p.11), then being somewhere else is no different than being the place you already are-things are the same no matter where you go. There is no difference between different places- anywhere has become everywhere, and when that happens, like multiplying by zero, you end up with nowhere.
Ch. 2
"Roads were practically nonexistent between towns" (p.22). A few pages, and a few generations later, we have a different picture; haphazard settlement and "ruinous agricultural practices" start to become prevalent as soon as settlements are established almost exclusively for monetary gain. Kunstler here is working backwards- the developers in chapter one building split levels are almost interchangeable with the settlers of the new world.
"Barn-raising was a Mennonite social innovation" (p.24). We normally think of construction as utilitarians, we need roads to go places, but we do not normally have a part in their construction- we rely on the government. But here, construction is a "social innovation." It brings people together to efficiently get things done. Strange to imagine such a thing today, communities taking care of their own roads, quickly in large groups, instead of hitting the same pot hole for months waiting for the city to fix it.
ReplyDelete"In the south, the individual, not the group or even the family, became the primary unit of settlement... (p.24) In America ownership meant freedom from the meddling of nobles, the right to freely dispose of land by sale at profit, the ability to move from one place to another without hindrance... (p.25) Our laws gave the individual clear title to make his own decisions... (p.26). Long before we sealed ourselves inside of cars to fully taste freedom, we were sealing our individual selves away to taste freedom in our own parcels of land. Freedom, then, seems to hinge on having your own space.
Ch. 3
"Industrialism... produced the most degraded human environment the world has yet seen" (p. 35). Industrialism is just the human driven change of potential energy (trees, coal, ect) into kinetic energy. We take the things in nature and turn them into "man made" things. What Kunstler is pointing out here, is that the things man makes don't accommodate more nature. American's view land as valuable once something has been done to it, so leaving nature as is, did not factor into early land use plans- thus the proliferation of cities with no green space.
"Yet through the nineteenth century, the standard of city housing declined steadily for all classes...you could be in a second-floor dining room and feel as though you were in a cellar" (p.36). As we remove ourselves from nature, we eventually find ourselves completely encased in our own creations. If we could convert all the potential energy in nature into man-made creations, all places would feel like those 19th century city dwellings.
"In France... it [the yearning for escape] found expression... in a surprisingly successful quest for civic amenity that transformed Paris from an overgrown medieval rat maze into a city of wide boulevards, greenery, and light...(p.37).
The way out of our own encasement is to side-step the lens of individuality, which seemingly only functions to encase (as in cars, our own property, which is just a physical boundary we put around ourselves) and instead look through the lens of community. The Parisians look around, which necessarily dictates that they go beyond their individual boundaries, and agree together that they needed change, while Americans only looked down at their pocketbooks- one ended up with more space, the other encased.
My question is how is this encasing reversed, given the vast and formidable infrastructure already exists? I can't imagine Burlington could just create a hundred acre park very easily at all.
Week 8:
ReplyDelete- Chapter 1: Kunstler opens chapter one with a bit of irony, reflecting back on the movie, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. The film’s antagonist, Dr. Doom, fantasizes about freeway infrastructure that will make Americans into cheap, fat, cultureless peoples. His fantasy has become a reality, not in the movie, but in contemporary American society. At least the Vermont highway system has disallowed billboards…
- Even though Kunstler did not grow up in the actual countryside (despite his mother’s terminology for their suburban home), having access to some undisturbed land gave him and his friends a sense of place and calm mind. He shares that they would adventure through these hundred-plus acres, which allowed them to embody a Davey-Crocket-like spirit. Although their favorite hang out was a man-made, decrepit mansion, its intertwinement with nature made it all the more ethereal. The suburbanization of America – made possible by cars and car infrastructure – put an end to this fantasyland. The manipulatively named “Northwood” and “Country Estates” were there to stay.
- On page 14 Kunstler exposes that the suburbs outside of the city were (and maybe still are) awful places for teenagers to develop. Without any natural places to explore, young people are be confined to “basements and bedrooms” until they get their licenses. This partly sums up my adolescent experience; we’d either hang out in someone’s basement or car. We’d also play sports outdoors, which would change from season to season, but our suburban/urban environment was definitely more favorable to the former type of entertainment.
Chapter 2:
ReplyDelete- I always find it interesting when religious teachings can be interpreted in ways that cleave a sect, creating a feud. Kunstler makes note of this contradiction, sharing that the Protestants often feared wildness, and sought to tame nature. But other Protestants viewed natural settings as places where one might better connect with God. (18). This dichotomy is still present among contemporary evangelical Christians and their relationships with climate change; some recognize the dangers of the phenomenon and advocate for mitigation, while others deny its existence and perpetuate a business as usual scenario.
- Although the early American settlers left England partly due to religious persecution, they themselves were not exactly lenient with other views. For instance, every member of a town was required to attend church services and live within a close proximity to the congregation. (21). After learning this, I am impressed how we have shifted to our contemporary culture towards science and technology. Having said that, there are still religious groups that stifle such innovations.
- I shouldn’t knock organized religion too hard, however. After all, the early American innovations came form religious groups; Kunstler notes on page 24 that the German Mennonites used tools that were expertly crafted. These peoples were also especially skilled in constructing barns. Being more skilled than other religious sects fostered competition, which further drove innovations. Religion in American Culture thereby played its role in augmenting technological advancements.
Chapter 3:
- American farm towns in the Midwest were organized in grid fashion, as this was the easiest manner of planning them. Unfortunately for the inhabitants, these angular patchworks did not allow for a city center. Feelings of neighborliness and community were also likely to be low. (29-30) A grid layout worked better in cities however, as apartment buildings placed people within close proximity to each other. The layout also made navigation easy even to the newcomer. (31). Today, mentally navigating the streets of a city with this type of layout is still easy, but physically navigating it is likely to be challenging; traffic patterns and aggressive driving can turn a trip to the grocery store into an adventure…
- Being a member of the modern, post-industrial United States, I often forget the drab condition that many cities (even NYC) were once occupied. On page 35, Kunstler notes that the industrialism created a boom of factory jobs within metropolitan areas. Along with it came a cheap, unskilled labor force, and even cheaper tenement housing. The conditions in these dwellings were literally inhumane. Disease broke out as a result. On the bright side, city cultures that are currently undergoing industrialization (as in many Indian and Chinese cities) and are rampant with slums are likely to become booming metropolises down the road.
- On page 36 Kunstler notes the parts of the past cities where mischief would occur: “the cutpurses, whores, and gin fiends who infected Hogarth’s London were the hopeless underclass of their day. Although there will always be those member of society who cannot control their appetites for various pleasures, the post-industrialist city is much safer than in used to be. Moreover, some cities that are currently developing – Copenhagen for example – have installed safety nets that help to improve the quality of life of low-income peoples.
- Q: If a culture of public transit begins to grow, what will the trend of suburbanization look like?
CHAPTER 1:
ReplyDeleteI love Kunstler's writing style, it's so conversational yet highly academic at the same time. It flows like poetry but hits like an essay. Anyways, in the short first chapter I found an example of cars, culture, and the media in almost every sentence. I'm not sure if that's because that is the subject of the book, or because I am starting to see examples of these things everywhere I look. I guess those three things are actually everywhere.
Cars: I was so surprised when Kunstler mentioned Lebanon, New Hampshire! I'm from Hanover, NH, which is the neighboring town not more than 2 minutes away. Lebanon was actually our high school rival (we beat them at everything), so I'm not quite as fond of it as he is. It is a nice place though. I actually took my driving test in Lebanon when I was 17. I remember driving around the park in the center of town that Kunstler mentions. Once I had my license, I drove to the restaurant that I worked at every weekend. I have a lot of personal experience driving in Lebanon, so it was interesting to hear a great author describe it. When Kunstler was describing Brockport, I like how he noted that "it was scaled to people, not cars." It's crazy to think of basically everywhere in America is made to be more convenient for cars than people. What's more important here???
Culture: One quote on page 10 did a great job of explaining our culture. " The newspaper headlines may shout about global warming, extinctions of living species, the devastation of rain forests, and other world-wide catastrophes, but Americans evince a striking complacency when it comes to their everyday environment and the growing calamity that it represents". As a nation, we aren't uninformed, but misinformed. The real information is out there, we just need to recognize what is real and what is fake. On the same page, he says we are "ever-busy, ever-building, ever-in-motion, ever-throwing- out the old for the new." Strong stuff.
Media: The opening story about "Who Framed Rodger Rabbit" explains how "our civilization has been undone by an evil cartoon ethos." I find it ridiculous that cartoons are accurately descrying our culture, and the cartoons can be considered a more reliable source of media than the evening news. In other words, we can learn lessons from cartoons.
CHAPTER 2:
Cars: This chapter got me thinking of a land before cars. Kunstler states that "roads were practically nonexistent between towns". Today, even in the most rural areas, you are most likely close enough to walk to a road. Back then towns were more logically placed near water so that boats could do most of the transportation. Of course there weren't as many people. Could you imagine a world without cars? How would our nation function if cars or roads disappeared tomorrow?
Culture: The American culture has been forming since the settlement of our land, it almost seems like we didn't have a chance. Even when the Pilgrims were somewhat disappointed with what they found, they thought "something could be done with tit could be conquered, vanquished, and ultimately redeemed by godly men. They immediately went to work building a settlement." This culture of expanding and building is not new. Where does the need to constantly expand come from? What would be different if America was colonized by a different group of people?
Media: I got to thinking of the Bible as a form of media. I don't want to get to particular in an effort to leave religious talk out of the blog, but to me, the Bible is unreliable media. It gave the impression that the earth is for humans to exploit, and so that's exactly what we did. Humans have always been faithful to media
ReplyDeleteCHAPTER 3:
Cars: The checkerboard style of the cities explained in this chapter helped to "pave" the way for transportation. It makes sense for wagons and horses to move in straight lines, it just makes things easier. Cars eventually became integrated into the grid style of cities. It was also interesting to read about how cities became polluted with waste, smells, and train fumes. Nothing even close to the pollution that cars are causing today though…
Culture: This quote sparked my thinking about culture for the whole chapter: "The grid was a product of the era's neoclassical spirit, at once practical and idealistic." The notion that it ONCE was practical is what got to me. This book is showing how the mindset of our culture hasn't changed all that much. Sure we have advanced technologically and scientifically, but our systems haven't really changed. The chapter mentions how some of the cities and towns are the same as they were when they were created hundreds of years ago. We can't expect to progress culturally if we keep plugging into the same system. When discussing the grid system, Kunstler says that "It failed to take account of topography. The relentlessly straight section lines followed the compass." I would say that our culture fails to take into account the topography in a symbolic way. We too follow the traditional compass and move in straight lines. We have reached a point where we have to think outside of the box, following the compass will not work for much longer.
Media: This chapter talks briefly about advertising, saying that "beyond advertising itself, business had a limited interest in decorating the public realm". This still holds true. The only way most big businesses see the public are as consumers, not real people. This is why so much is made of advertising, it's the way business communicate with the public. Also relating to media, the chapter talks about how fine art was relatively bleak. Today, art and media are so intertwined, which is good in some sense (artistic music videos), and terrible in some senses (Miley cyrus).
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteChapter 1:
ReplyDeleteCars: “...the end product is an encapsulated life, spent more and more either in a motor car or within the cabin of darkness before a television set.” (p. 10) Kunstler talks about after WWII, where we are
Media: “The newspaper headlines may shout about global warming, extinctions of living species, the devastation of rain forests, and other worldwide catastrophes, but Americans evince a striking complacency when it comes to their everyday environment and the growing calamity that it represents.” (p.10) This quote reminds me of the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car.” Our culture has been dominated by cars and although we know cars contribute to global warming and we are in times of peak oil, majority of us continue our everyday lives without a second thought. The media needs to do more than just inform us about these rising conflicts and should spend less time on trying to sell us gas-guzzling Hummers and more time selling us sustainable solutions.
Culture: “Otherwise, teen life there was reduced to waiting for that transforming moment of becoming a licensed driver.” (p.14) Kunstler talks about his old stomping grounds that had very little places for teens to publicly convene, so they would hang out in basements and bedrooms to smoke pot and listen to the radio. This quote made me think of “American Graffiti,” because the car was used to socialize, smoke, and listen to music. Once a teenager gets their license, they are free from these depressing slums of a basement and were free to go where they please. The car is still seen as a pivotal point in our culture and a symbol of growing up.
Chapter 2:
Cars: “In America, ownership meant freedom from the meddling of nobles, the right to freely dispose of land by sale at a profit, the ability to move from one place to another without hindrance…” (p.25) Although cars were not invented in these times, this quote reminded me of cars and what a car meant to an individual. People tried to escape the nobles of their homeland and go to America and have religious freedom, the right to own land, and to go where they pleased. Land ownership in this time period meant the same as a car does to us now. Cars symbolize freedom and is our ticket to escape the “real world.”
Culture: “The identification of this extreme individualism of property ownership with all that is sacred in American life has been the source of the problems…” (p.26) Kunstler statement is more directed towards land ownership and how the right to own land was seen as individualism. In class, we have gone in depth about cars as a symbol of individualism and land ownership was no different. A car or a piece of land is a representation of yourself and people have fought hard to get the right to ownership of both of these things.
Media: I couldn’t find a great example of media in this chapter, but in the beginning of the chapter, Kunstler mentions the bible. He mentions Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. The bible gave the reader this image of a picturesque place that was a privilege, not a right (same with cars.) The media paints these pictures of an ideal place or object that we must have and it gives us something to strive towards. This could be a stretch, but the Garden of Eden in terms of car culture, could potentially be the open road.
Chapter 3:
ReplyDeleteCars: “Property ownership was the keystone of liberty.” (p.35) Here Kunstler goes again, where he talks about the importance of land ownership and describes the obstacles in history people had to endure to own property. As we learned in Cotten Seiler’s book, we were exposed to the hardships woman and African Americans had to endure in order to be able to drive and own a car. Ownership through history always seems to start as a privilege not a right and there are a lot of parallels between cars and our land.
Culture: “In America, with its superabundance of cheap land, simple property laws, social mobility, mania for profit, zest for practical invention, and Bible-drunk sense of history, the yearning to escape industrialism expressed itself as a renewed search for Eden.” (p. 37) In our history, it seems as though we are always trying to escape something, whether it’s from society and the working grind or as simple as our everyday lives. Americans are always looking for the next best thing or the next “Eden.” In this book, Kunstler introduces the next “Eden” as Suburbia and through my other ENVS classes, I have learned that our landscape and our car issues are extremely linked.
Media: This chapter was also scarce on media examples, but I thought about the media when Kunstler was talking about the growth of cities and the national grid. What kind of media techniques did they use to get people to move into cities and settle in to places like “Suburbia?” Are they similar persuasive techniques that the car industries use in their advertisements?
Chapter 1:
ReplyDeleteCars: On page 14 Kunstler talks about suburbia and how in suburbia “teen life was reduced to waiting for that transforming moment of becoming a licensed driver”. This clearly shows the importance of the car, especially in suburbia, and how it was needed for the social lives of teens.
Culture: I found it very interesting to see the comparisons that Kunstler made between the different cultures found within a city, a town and a suburb. While suburbs rely on cars and built around the infrastructure of roads, towns are built around walking and biking roads and cities around public transportation.
Media: The media advertises the suburbs and how perfect they were after the war. This led to sprawl and overdevelopment, loss of wilderness and more dependance upon cars. Good for GDP, bad for our environment.
Chapter 2:
Cars: Very cool to see that everything was transported by water, and “roads practically non-existent between towns”.(p21) This was definitely the easiest way to transport goods and why everyone settled around water. This is clearly a different story today, with roads just about EVERYWHERE is the US.
Culture: We all imagine (I do anyways) this time when there was wilderness everywhere and everyone treated it with respect and knew how to farm and grow food with the environment in mind. Now learning that, no, that was not the culture, rather people farmed land for maybe 5 or 6 years until it as exhausted, then moved on to new land because it was available and easier than trying to manage the land well...
Media: There was not much media permeating society in the 1600’s, however the one underlying source of information was the bible. The bible surrounded all decisions and was often the center point of a town serving as both a place for politics and religion.
Chapter 3:
Cars: As cities became more and more populated, the streets became less of a place that you would want to walk or hang out. Enter the car, the new way to travel around the streets and since it was in a grid, never get lost in the city!
Culture: Land was set up in terms of a grid with private property at the center point. No consideration for topography or gradient and all this did was encourage individualism rather than collectivism and cooperation. This grid made for towns that had no real town center and while being easy to navigate, had no place set aside for public enjoyment.
Media: The American government advertised land on the frontier not thinking that anyone would want it. They set the price at $2 / acre in 1796! This price actually dropped to $1.25 / acre as time went on because there was still so much raw land. At those prices, no wonder there was so much interest in pursuing the frontier!
Media: It was in a “development” called Northwood.” “In the months that followed, the trees crashed down, the mansion was demolished, new houses went up, and Clarence Hungerford Mackay’s 480 acres was turned into another development called—what else? –Country Estates!” The names of these communities are definitely a form of media. They give it names like Northwood to help market the new development as a place with more character than it actually has, and to give it a more rustic and natural feel.
ReplyDeleteCulture: “The name had only a casual relation to geography…but the wood part was spurious since the tract occupied a set of former farm fields.” This is similar to my last quote, but I had to pick it because it instantly reminded me of the developments in the town I grew up in. Dorset Farms, Cider Mill, and Butler farms were the really big developments in my area. Growing up my Grandpa had a small farm on Hinesburg Road in South Burlington with fields surrounding his house with scattered homes. Over the years we watched the land across the street and small neighborhood get torn up and turned into a development of cookie cutter homes, named Butler farms. I have always hated how they named the neighborhoods based on farm names. It’s just a reminder that there was once a gorgeous natural space and it has now been completely altered for human desires.
Cars: “It was scaled to the people, not cars. It has the variety that comes from a mixed-use community.” I really liked this. So many cities and towns were designed for the convenience of cars and not people. Everything was built so spread out making us rely on our cars to get us everywhere, and then we have to rely on places to park our cars. This form of development and transportation is completely unsustainable. There needs to be a shift towards public transportation. One shift could be to have less access to parking, using it as a disincentive for people to drive making it seem like more of a hassle then just walking or hopping on a bus.
Chapter 2
Cars: “It was December and the fathomless forests they confronted must have looked like anything but the Promised Land. They had believed in the literal reenactment of Biblical events.” This kind of relates to the image people have/had about driving. They believed it was their ticket to freedom and the “open” road. But the road is really full of restrictions and controls your actions. For a little this dream of freedom and independence might have been true, but now the reality of freedom and the open road is smog and traffic. Not exactly what people envisioned.
Culture: As soon as the connection between towns increased people started to spread out even further. This is just like when cars came around making it much easier for people to travel farther distances, eventually leading to urban sprawl. This shows that sprawl and scattered development isn’t just a part of recent human desires, but it has been part of our development since the start.
Media: I had a hard time finding examples of media but one connection I could make was from the quote, “Stock ventures of that time were mainly schemes cooked up to promote large-scale trade in natural resources, and raw land was the ultimate resource.” In the beginning of the chapter the author talked about how early settlement and communities were designed for self-sufficiency and not for mass production. They only used as much land needed to support their individual family needs. Now people are being encouraged to sell land for profit, turning it into a commodity.
Chapter 3
ReplyDeleteCars: “It failed to take account of topography. The relentlessly straight section lines followed the compass, marching through swamps, across rivers, and over hill tops.” They dint even take the environment into account during their development plans. They weren’t considering the impacts developing near or over ecosystems would have. This is the same with our freeway system. They weren’t aware and didn’t take into account the impacts the placement of roads would have cutting and separating ecosystems, human desire/needs trumps the environment, something we still see in our development today in some parts.
Culture: “…In doing so it wiped out the geographical features—hills, dales, and ponds—that characterized rugged Manhattan island, and replaced them with an unrelievedly mechanistic layout of linear streets and avenues…” Humans completely removed nature from their everyday life and replaced it with hard mad made things like roads, buildings and concrete. Creating a bubble from the natural world. Lowering our understanding and personal values and relationship with the environment, leading to more destruction and devastation.
Media: This chapter mentions very little about media but I think in this time businesses were the major form of media and influence. “American cities flourished almost solely as centers for business, and they showed it. Americans omitted to build the ceremonial spaces and public structures that these other functions might have called for.” Businesses dominated the cities and told people what was necessary and what should be built.
Question: After so many years of building and designing the infrastructure that we have today, it is possible to redesign them and make cities sustainable and built for people not cars?
Chapter One:
ReplyDeleteMedia: “ that our civilization has been undone by an evil cartoon ethos - could not be more pertinent, for more and more we appear to be a nation of overfed clowns living in a hostile cartoon environment.” (10) I thought this quote depicted modern society in quite a comical but visually accurate depiction of society. I think is especially ironic because cartoons or more so fairytales are suppose to be an idealistic look at the world, while clowns are a more accurate look at the world. Cartoons are meant to be non-realistic humorous looks at the world, our world is almost non-realistic to think what society has done to this world, with little logic and extreme measures, it seems so horrible it’s almost unimaginable, almost so outlandish it should be funny.
Culture: “ever-busy, ever-building, ever-in-motion, ever-throwing-out the old for the new, we have hardly paused to think about what we are so busy building, and what we have thrown away.” (10) This quote describes modern society perfectly, we’re continuously wanting more and more out of life, without realizing what we already have, what we’ve especially already created that we can reduce, reuse and recycling. Look at the cities we’ve already created, these massive structures that already exist, while we’re stilling building taller and wider. Sprawl is a huge result of this concept, how we’ve expanded so vastly into the landscape in such destructive ways without understanding our impacts.
“The process of destruction that is the subject of this book is so poorly understood that there are few words to even describe it. Suburbia. Sprawl. Overdevelopment. Conurbation (Mumford’s term). Megalopolis. A professor at Penn State dubbed it the “galactic metropolis.” (15) I think it’s interesting that they refer to growth to destruction. How society developed is referred to as destructible, how we’ve damaged the land, grew outward and had to create new words to the english dictionary to describe what we’ve done. There are so few words and there is a reason, this shouldn’t have occurred, there shouldn’t be words to describe how modern culture and design inevitably destructed our world and natural habitats.
Chapter Two:
ReplyDelete“This insight didn’t dispose them to fear the wilderness any less, but it spawned the utilitarian hope that something could be done with it, that it could be conquered, vanquished, and ultimately redeemed by godly men.” (19) Men feared this immensity of open land, instead of looked at it as land of opportunity. When did this shift occur? When did man go from thinking we have a massive country to explore and expand. We have no reason that we have a right to this land, the original species, the original inhabiters had a right to the land. But as American’s we have this misunderstanding that we shall own all, that we seem to think we have a right to all resources and land, but this is false, this is why we’ve destructed out natural habitats, and why we’ve continuously expanded from being a society that needed one earth to survive, to needing four earths for United States citizens need.
“Where a minority couldn’t abide the way a town was run, they could resolve their problem by “hiving out” to some unsettled area - always in a group - and creating a way of life with which they were at ease.” (20) I liked this quote a lot, but at the same time it’s bittersweet. I feel like this society is beginning to see groups, and impressive individuals that want to live differently than the average American, take for instance No Impact Man, from New York City, wanting to live for a year without impacting the earth in any form. These people create the minority in our country, and tend to find few people with similar views, but I think this is changing, or at least I hope to see this change. However, I think this quote was more referring to the past, and was the result of how sprawl and expansion across the country occurred.
“Our laws gave the individual clear title to make his own decisions, but they also deprived him of the support of community and custom and of the presence of sacred places.”(26) I think this was a key quote in regards to culture. I think we didn’t initially begin with the community mindset, which really started us down a very negative pathway from the beginning, as everyone reached towards individualism. I think as we’ve seen any analyzed cars had one of the biggest impacts on this and thus structured the way society expanded, developed and grew.
Chapter Three:
ReplyDelete“This dictated a way of thinking about the community in which private property was everything and the public realm - namely, the streets that connected all the separate pieces of private property - counted for nothing.” (30) This section talks about how the grid system began, and what began the concepts of boundaries, and therefore laying out society in a box like structure, not establishing relationships with neighbors or basing a society off a community, instead of this structured grid like system. The relationships of neighbors clearly were altered and couldn’t progress in a beneficiary way is the grid system spread them out individually. Again, this relates to both the way the highways were created and land was divided. Causing people to have to drive to neighbors that could have been close by within a community. One of societies biggest down falls I think was this dispersal or land and then the consequential need to add transportation, and therefore continue this cyclical impact on earth.
“In a nation where the opportunity for personal profit knew no natural limit, unbridled economic forces were free to damage both nature and culture, and they accomplished this most visibly by degrading the urban setting.” 33 I think this concept of no natural limit has a key impact on how society expanded. I found it extremely interesting as it relates to Europe. After spending some time there I kept thinking, why it’s the U.S. designed this way, thoughtful with city centers, and a culture built around the urban setting, especially transportation. Especially the city I spent the most time in, Copenhagen, the city is layed out and expanded through a very thoughtful way of connecting public transportation. The city is layed out as a five finger system, with trains out to each point, with connecting bike and bus infrastructure from this five fingers. The city growth and development is all designed off this form of connectivity to the urban settling. I think this says a lot about our concerns, and ideas of sprawl, suburbia, and cars. Our demand for them, shaped how we developed away from urban settings to individualize and therefore consume, both through gas emissions, and land use.
“Industrialism, the main creative force of the 19th century...produced the most degraded human environment the world had yet seen.” (35) This is what history classes in eighth grade specialize in, industrialism and it’s benefits to society. I didn’t truly learn about industrialisms impact on the environment until I was in college. This is what society hides from you, we learn about progress and our development to create the world we’re in, but middle school education hides the truth. While we learn about the negative effects on health, and workers, I never learned about the environmental impacts. The description that followed was very thought provoking for the imagery of the system, “clank of machinery, the shrill steam whistles, the speed of locomotives, the coal smoke and the soot that fell like black snow everywhere.”(37). We’re continually trying to make up for that major mistake in this world, yet a century later we still have the same values that are doing little to help us improve and only continue to create more destruction to this world.
Question:
During Industrialism in the 19th century, how much knowledge and understanding was around about the impacts on the environment, and how much was accepted. Could we have hypothetically reversed the curse, if there was knowledge, or was everything still new and exciting, as well as misunderstood during that era?
Chapter 1:
ReplyDeleteCar: On page 14, Kunstler talks about teens in the suburbs who are so far from any public areas, and they are so bored that their common meeting area is in each other’s basements, where they smoke pot and listen to rock music, awaiting the day they can finally have their license to be able to go places and do things. This point kind of melds with the culture of suburbs but it illustrates how important a car is in rural areas in order for people to be cultured and have youthful experiences. Small, out of the way suburbs do not have much for recreation, therefore a car becomes a gateway to a whole new world.
Culture: “80% of everything built has been built in the last 50 years” (p. 10). This is astonishing and demonstrates how fast paced our society has become. We overdevelop and over use the land steadily, and this is precisely the reason that there is a nowhere, as Kunstler points out. The more we build, the more we desert things and want to build more creating more empty, burnt out places. It is scary how fast we are developing and quick we shift our attention and abandon old projects and buildings for the next big thing.
Media: I couldn’t find much media within the chapter but the movie Roger Rabbit was mentioned on page 9. This reference was important because it was mocking how Doom wanted to create a car-crazed society for everyone to live in, and this actually happened! We live in such a car dependent world, that this movie actually becomes our reality. No fuzzy little animals going into the sunset in this world, instead, we are killing their environment and destroying the earth for future generations of both humans and animals by our heavy dependence on cars and fossil fuels.
Chapter 2:
Car: This chapter discusses the settlement of America, Plymouth, MA to be exact. Kunstler states that roads were no existent and that water/boats were the main means of transportation (p.21). The thought of not having roads sounds so crazy to me because the car is such a large part of our lives. Of course back then the technology was not as advanced as it is now, so cars were probably not even on the minds of settlers, but getting their land settled and lives started were priority, and today these necessities have changed so much and involve cars and automobility.
Culture: Like the puritans on page 19 in this chapter, society today uses whatever it takes for resources to make our society the way we want it. Puritans settling would use whatever materials they wanted to design their towns and settlements. Similar to today, we use all sorts of materials to come up with the next best thing, especially with cars, and we do not consider the impacts we are having on the surround environment, just societies wants and needs.
Media: The Bible and the Garden of Eden are discussed on page 18. This was the only major source of media I could find from this chapter. Referencing how settlers and Adam and Eve were similar was a smart set-up for Kunstler and this chapter. If I wanted to twist the Adam and Eve reference to fit car culture today, I could say that cars are like the forbidden fruit, so tempting and people just keep wanting more cars and the next best one, that we cannot resist buying cars and having our lives depend on them. And like when Eve took that first bite, she was doomed; so with our car culture, without a shift, we are doomed as well.
Chapter 3:
ReplyDeleteCars: Throughout this entire chapter cities being built on grids were discussed. In the sense of not knowing cars were coming, this was very smart of city planners back then, it made the age of automobility that much easier to come about because the infrastructure for roads was already laid down. Of course, because it is a grid, this makes walking and biking easier as well, but unfortunately cars are the norm, for now.
Culture: On page 31 Kunstler talks about how people gave up their stony hill farms for the frontier. This happens so much today as well. People in rural communities cannot support themselves so to find a better future and more jobs they flood to cities hoping for success there, sadly this has proven to be untrue, and yet people still have not learned from the past and continue to flood cities.
Media: Hogarth’s London was discussed in this chapter on page 36. Hogarth’s London was a series of portraits made by Hogarth that depicted the negative lives of city dwellers and all that was part of the slums. It was raw, honest art that really portrayed what the cities were like and what they would continue to be like if people were not taken care of (i.e. sanitation).
Question: When cities begin to crumble, like they have done in the past, what will happen to road infrastructure and what will replace cars like cars did boats?
Chapter 1
ReplyDelete-Kunstler states that “eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last fifty years.” It’s important to remember that car ownership was widespread fifty years ago, meaning that eighty percent of our infrastructure is built with the car in mind. Americans are used to using their car to get everywhere because that is how our society was designed, and most are reluctant to change.
-Kunstler later mentions that the town of North Wood was merely a “mockery” of a town like Lebanon, New Hampshire. The main difference between the two towns is that Lebanon was planned before the car was invented, while North Wood was not. Because the organizers of North Wood knew that their residents would have cars, they neglected to include a town center, any shops or public buildings, or communal places to work or play. Instead, endless rows of houses that can only be reached by car are the only thing in the town.
Chapter 2
-When discussing early Puritan settlements in Massachusetts, Kunstler states that a system of private property was quickly adopted. Rather than organizing more communal type living as the natives did, the Puritans decided to split their land into equal plots that were sold to individual families. In doing this, they set up a system in which people got used to living on isolated plots, a trend that has continued throughout the country’s history.
-Kunstler then mentions that if a group of people felt they were being treated unfairly in a town, they would pick up their belongings and resettle somewhere else, isolated from their original settlement. This can be considered an early example of sprawl, as the settlers wasted no time in exploiting land and pushing west.
-Kunstler states that, “the commercial transfer of property [became] the basis of American land-use planning, which is to say hardly any planning at all.” Rather than try to utilize living space and champion efficiency, individuals claimed their own plots of land away from others. Landowners often divided their plots into smaller plots into smaller subplots and sold them off, increasing the population.
Geography of Nowhere
ReplyDeleteChapter One:
CARS
According to Kustler, “teen life there [the suburbs of Long Island] was reduced to wating for that transforming moment of becoming a licensed driver” (14). This explains the obsession and romance with cars in American popular culture from the 50s on. If you live in a sea of houses with nowhere to walk to, it’s no wonder the car, bringing incredible mobility, was glorified.
CULTURE:
Kunstler, having lived in “suburb, city, and town,” comes out of those experiences “biased in favor of town life—at least insofar as what America had to offer in my time” (15). A town generally has residential district(s) and a downtown district(s), giving it the privacy and quiet of the suburbs, with the amusements of a large city. I wonder if “town” has just become the ideal as a middleground between the city and suburb, offering the best of both worlds.
MEDIA
Kunstler opens the chapter with the plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit’s antogonist’s evil plan: cartoon business tycoon disguised as human setting his sights on LA to create his dream landscape: sprawl by destroying a budding public transport system. While not exactly prophetic in that it was made in 1988, it’s interesting that Kunstler introduces with this idea. This “Geography of Nowhere” that we’ve developed in America is, in this context, a toonish, absurd joke.
Chapter two
CARS
Kunstler explains the ways towns were typically set up in early New England, where “roads were practically nonexistent…towns were generally sited near water, and goods and people moved by boat when they moved at all” (21). Unlike modern day mentality, “the Puritan towns observed agreed-upon limits.” I wonder if the limited mobility by water reflected the sense that towns should, naturally have limits, where the unlimited scope of automobility drives an obsession with growth and expansion.
CULTURE
According to Kunstler, the Puritans that saw hope for religious freedom in America came to define it as a Garden Of Eden full of Milk and Honey—a wilderness to “be conquered, vanquished, and ultimately redeemed by godly men” (19). As young America spread, it’s not hard to imagine coming to this conclusion, the land representing what must have seemed like limitless land and resources. It’s interesting to see how this concept has prevailed, we worship National Parks as sacred, protected “Edens,” even as we continue to sprawl and pollute further upon the landscape to mine its milk and honey with godly impunity.
MEDIA
Kunstler mentions further down that “American land law was predicated on the paramount principle that land was first and foremost a commodity for capital gain.” Land became owned by the individual, leading, as Kunstler suggests, to the phrase “You can’t tell me what to do on my own land”( 26). This concept, it seems, is translated later on to automobiles (“You can’t tell me what to do in my own car”), as evidenced in media like American Graffiti and Nelly’s Ride wit Me.
Chapter three
DeleteCARS
Kunstler documents, in this chapter, how cities transformed from small towns into slums and factories, where tenants and workers had no control over their quality of life. Given this glum perspective of city life in early America, it’s easy to see how the introduction of the suburbs—housing in the country, free of industrial fumes—and their counterpart, the automobile, would be extremely appealing to early Americans.
CULTURE
At the beginning of the chapter, Kunstler claims that “The American government was most effective at getting settlers into this land…[by] all but giving land away” (30). Land was sold for as low as $1.25 an acre by the 1820s. This parceling and selling of land clearly gave rise to the culture of American capitalism. The first people that moved here could buy, for a low price, an entirely new, prosperous identity by parceling up and selling land. Land, seemingly limitless, became the basis of identity in this New World.
MEDIA
Kunstler compares the hastily, business-centrically planned American cities with European cities, built as “centers of political, commercial ecclesiastical, and military power, and they showed it…in the overarching civic conciousness with which buildings and spaces were tied together as an organic whole, reflecting the idea of civilization as a spiritual enterprise” (33). In a country with its major cities so hastily planned and exploited by the profit margin, it begins to make sense why advertisement and profit-generating media in America reflect civilization as a consumerist enterprise.
QUESTION:
How does the rapid expansion and exploitation of American land and cities lead to the idealization of the freedom of mobility? How does the commodity and ensuing identification with land translate into cars as land becomes scarce in America?
Cleopatra Doley
ReplyDeleteThe Geography of Nowhere chapters 1-3
Chapter 1
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a great movie! When he provides the movie as an metaphor for the streetcar system, it really brings things into perspective for what I should be looking forward to in this book.
- I think his life while growing up is interesting. As he grows up he continues to move from place to place. Every place he goes to, he needs to rely on the car. Every where he goes, the car needs to take him there. It’s built into his life.
- I think his understanding of development is quite different than what I’m used to. He offers the idea that development is actually sickening, and bad. But, I feel that development in of it self isn’t bad, but how we develop that can have negative affects on the environment.
Chapter 2
- I don’t like how he talks about Europeans colonizing with no mention of the Native peoples they colonized. He’s going through a Biblical lens to understand the actions of the Europeans that came, but I don’t understand why he’s not acknowledging the genocide of an entire group of people. If you’re going to talk about pilgrims coming to the Americas, they should probably also talk about what they did to people who were already here.
- and then the author goes on to talk about “land law” but doesn’t describe any sort of land management Native peoples had before Europeans came? why not? And how could he describe the land as “free land” for the colonizers that came, instead of taken land? I am frustrated by this part of the book. He said one thing about Iroquois, Algonquin, and African people. And than never mentions anything terrible going on.
- oh goodness. And the author claims that “America’s were the most liberal property laws on earth” UM. He referenced the “individualism” that led to this “liberal” property ownership … when instead he should have referenced the of stealing of an entire continent from Native groups to give to White people which made land “ownership” so liberal and available.
Chapter 3
- City planning is the most significant thing in seeing how a area develops. When a city is not planned, sprawl is bound to happen. The more we plan with long term ideas, (not the quickfixes of modernism) the better our communities will be.
- Modernism is a huge backlash of the development of cities. In NYC for example (although the author is talking about Philly) modernist city planners put a huge highway in the Bronx to forward automobiles in that area. But then the surrounding neighborhood became horrible.
- Classism (which is heavily influenced by racism, sexism, ect.) was rampant. The working class people were living in buildings that weren’t being held up to livable standards. And the poor and working class were forced to live there to keep a job.
Chapter 3
ReplyDelete-Much of America has utilized the grid system to organize their community. It lead to the trend of scattered farms, leaving citizens to endure more transportation than is necessary. As the car has become more vital in society, these scattered properties have not changed. The result is no other option but for most Americans to drive whenever they need to go somewhere.
-When discussing William Penn’s initial plan for a utopian metropolis, he questions whether the transportation problems that would occur with a sprawling grid pattern even occurred to Penn. His plan called for 10,000 one-acre lots that would have single-family houses with as many families residing in them. He called for each house to be surrounded by their own garden and orchards, neglecting the possibility of a centrally located community garden that could be shared by all of the residents.
-Kunstler includes a quote from Lewis Mumford, which states that, “Industrialism… produced the most degraded human environment the world had yet seen.” With industrialism, came Henry Ford and his assembly line to build the Model T. Concrete roads started appearing all over the country to connect the new factories that were being built. As stated previously, all this was based on a system where the car is the main form of transport.
Chapter One:
ReplyDeleteCulture: pg 11- Kunstler explains that his mother referred to any place of residence where one cannot hail a cab off of their front steps as the country. This is interesting because of how much truth it holds- I grew up in the city and then moved to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere NH and my little mind was absolutely blown. My cousins, who still live in the city, will take drives to the suburbs and refer to it as the country. We are so trained to think one way or the other- so if a born-and-raised Vermonter from the sticks were to see Concord, NH it would be referred to as a city.
Cars: pg 15- This was brief and perhaps a bit of a stretch but here Kunstler is describing his college and how much he loved the town that it was in, and then he gets to the actual campus and seems to hate it, describing it mostly by its “sea of parking”. The cars here made his campus and section of the town he loved so much unappealing.
Media: There was not anything that I found for media here, except maybe the opening page where it talks about the cartoon character, Judge Doom, and how he perfectly described our reality long before it was so.
Chapter 2:
Culture: pg 21- At one point there was a law within the small settlement that one shall not build their house more than a half mile away from the town center/ meeting house. The mention that this was soon repealed came after I had already thought to myself that this could not be possible or headed if it were in fact in place at one time. It’s just the beginning of our American way of living and our sprawl- not wanting to be right in the center but rather a farther distance outside, complicating the movement of goods and our selves.
Cars- pg 22- This was not directly about cars as they weren’t invented during this time period, however, there are many different areas where the future of cars is mildly hinted at. For example, the paths that the Indians used as their trade routes that are described on this page are referred to as highways- instantly instilling the image of a 4 lane, loud, paved road with cars whizzing by. This, I think, is Kunstler’s purposeful doing.
Media- Again, no media, but perhaps the Bible can be a sort of media here. The chapter explains how American soil went from the “Garden of Eden”- taken care of so well by the natives who understood nature and worked with it- to a slowly but surely sprawling and razed landscape. We took what was not meant for us solely to take, and we will eventually pay all of the consequences. Tocqueville also alludes to this with his observation on pg. 27 referring to individualism as, overall, selfishness.
Chapter 3:
Culture: pg 35- When I read Kunstler’s explanation of industrialism, and how we entitled humans only take and rarely give back or think of the consequences, I can see more and more how we arrived at such an unsustainable lifestyle of today. A forest is considered beautiful but only truly worth something because of the tree species that have monetary value if they are cut down and turned into tables or houses or benches.
Cars: The concept of the grid was mentioned throughout this chapter and at one point was even described to make traffic patterns easy. The grid system was basically created for the purpose of simple transportation, catering to the prospect of having jam-packed car-filled streets at some point in time.
Media: pg 35- Call this a stretch, but I inferred that the government and landlords had instilled, with the help of the American Dream, the idea that “property ownership was the keystone of liberty”, and most likely had a pretty large and successful market around it. We are possessive creatures, and have been brainwashed to feel that if it is not ours and only ours, that we are not indeed free.
Chapter One
ReplyDeleteCars
“Eight lanes of shimmering cement running from here to Pasadena.” (Page 10)
Our culture was so excited about a highway that was eight lanes wide, if that does not scream we are obsessed with cars I’m not sure what would. Although Kunstler is saying that quote with sarcasm, it is true that a super highway like the LA Freeway did excite drivers. They thought that they would be able to drive throughout the LA area in minutes and avoid any traffic. That fact that there was an eight lane highway being built meant that we truly were obsessed with cars and our lives began to revolve around them.
Culture
“For many, the word development itself has become a dirty word.” (Page 9)
Kunstler goes on to explain that whether it was housing developments, road development, or commercial development, none of them were creating anything sustainable or helpful to the environment. Housing developments were being built like fire in the Post-World War II era and that is the era when fast food restaurants first arrived in America. Development was typically in the suburbs where you would then need a car to go everywhere and that would create more pollution. Kunstler talks about when his family first moved out of New York City and into a development on Long Island and how developments looked the same with very little variation between houses. It is safe to say that development has not stopped growing since this time, suburban sprawl has continued to grow.
Media
“Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last fifty years, and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy, and spiritually degrading.” (Page 10)
This relates to media in our country because the new “development” was part of the new suburban towns and sprawl that came about after World War II. The country was building up so quickly that they were creating more uniform buildings in residential and commercial areas, the unique buildings were lost behind a new wave of buildings. The media advertised and promoted moving to the suburbs and getting your own car, most families during this time period were buying second cars for their families.
Chapter Two
ReplyDeleteCars
“The object of this way of life was not to grow a surplus crops for market, but to achieve a sort of drowsing medieval stability based on self-sufficiency and a dour preoccupation with getting into heaven.” (page 21)
This quote was a metaphor to me about how our current culture is about overconsumption compared to when the Mayflower arrived and they were not focused on surpluses and overconsumption. Most families own more than one car in the United States and if you are wealthier than you might own multiple cars to show everyone how successful you have become and how much money you have. This theme can be related back to the surplus of crops, even if a family in the 1600s had a lot of money they were not focused on showing everyone how much food they could have because they had more money than the rest.
Culture
“ The Revolution also got rid of such obnoxious English traditions” (Page 25)
This thought reminded me of how we pass our traditions down every generation and each generation in America seems to be more consumptive. Two generations ago people only had one car if that, and now every family member has a car and sometimes more than one. If you think about the future and our current system of thinking, I wonder if future generations will change our paradigm about owning many cars or if it will be the same.
Media
“The Virginians had started the tradition of importing African slaves at Jamestown in 1619” (Page 24)
This was apart of the media in the 1600s, people in Africa would hear of an opportunity that was falsely advertised or they were forced to ride the ship to America to work. Many of them thought they would work there for a short period of time and then return to Africa, but many died on the way there or once they became slaves. This was a form of media between Americans and Africans because they worked together to get the word out about the chance they could go work in America.
Chapter Three
ReplyDeleteCars
“In America, with its superabundance of cheap land, simple property laws, social mobility, mania for profit” (Page 37)
This section of the chapter is the opening for how America builds upon sprawl compared to other countries that never build extensive sprawl like America. This is the opening line that then continues to say that with the suburban neighborhoods then you need cars, which creates more environmental harm and creates a need for more material goods.
Culture
“The deadening uniformity finally became intolerable.” (Page 33)
After years of uniformity and the creation of the perfectly rectangular New York City, people were tired of the blocks going on in numbers forever. This would eventually become what New York was known for as it was an easy city to then build transit to move around. They brought an environmental retreat into the city and created what is known as Central Park. This changed the paradigm of the city even in the 1800s.
Media
“The American government was most effective at getting settlers into this land.” (Page 29)
This quote is explaining that the government was effective at getting people into the newly acquired land further west than the colonies. They advertised and created beneficial packages for people to move to the unknown land. If they created great advertising campaigns explaining how great the new land was then more people were willing to move. They campaigned for cheap land at the beginning and they successfully brought thousands of people to the land.
Question:
What would America look like today if we took after European countries and did not build suburban sprawl?
Chapter 1
ReplyDeleteThe last full paragraph on page 10 and the one split at the bottom with page 11 lays out the author’s motivations of writing this book. As he says, “I have a hunch that many other people find their surroundings as distressing as I do my own, yet I sensed too that they lack the vocabulary [or perhaps the knowledge] to understand what is wrong with the places they ought to know best.” This pretty much describes my mindset going into the book and leaves me anxious to see where he goes with the content.
Page 13 describes the layout of Lebanon, NH a town Kunstler visited in his youth. The layout described as traditional New England style and it’s funny because it is pretty much the same as the center of my hometown Chelmsford, MA. All of the essential things for a small town to operate are within walking distance but due to sprawl, there is not a lot of people who can take advantage of the town center layout without driving in from outside.
Page 14 talks about the stagnancy of the suburban life of a teenager due to there being no worthwhile destination reachable by bike or foot, “…teen life there was reduced to waiting for that transforming moment of becoming a licensed driver.” This essential summarizes my teenage years, as I'm sure it does many others. It really sucked growing up in a society built like this, ending up doing exactly what he described in some cases, all due to the terrible land use planning of people before us.
Chapter 2
Page 20: “The Puritans were not egalitarian. The idea of social order based on hierarchy of position was natural for them. Wealthy of exalted persons got bigger allocations.” Page 21: “In contrast to today’s heedless lust for “growth” at any price, the puritan towns observed agreed upon limits. A consensus emerged within each town when it had reached optimum size…” Here we see how Puritanical views shaped our society and what might have been able to keep us within our limits. If only we could have kept deciding to live on limits, possibly the sprawl and unsustainable use of resources would not have become problems.
The first full paragraph on page 24 speaks of William Penn’s plan to settle the countryside by forming nuclear communities would have been a great idea. I believe it is something that should be experimented with in the present day to see if it could be a self-sustaining society. By forming a tight community with land split into wedges outward for each family in my opinion would allow for enough food production and would allow for a high social well-being if it incorporates renewable energy. The further adoption of solar power generation and advancement of electric car technology could also be able to sustain a car culture as well.
Page 26: “Nearly eradicated in the rush to profit was the concept of stewardship, of land as a public trust: that we who are alive now are responsible for taking proper care of the landscape so that future generations can swell in it in safety and happiness.” This concept of stewardship is important and is not prevalent in today’s society. In order to live sustainably and adapt our culture to the future, I believe stewardship will be integral.
Chapter 3
ReplyDeletePage 30 talks about how the national grid that split up the Midwest ignored the topography and how it segmented the settlements. Roads were needed to connect these settlements to each other and that set the stage for the start of a car culture. Roads needed to be built for horses and buggies, and eventually we started expanding so much that cars were needed in order to function.
Page 33: “In a nation where the opportunity for personal profit knew no natural limit, unbridled economic forces were free to damage both nature and culture, and they accomplished most visibly by degrading the urban setting….The use of the space itself, of the real estate, was a forgone conclusion: maximize the building lot, period.” The amount of people living in cities is mostly unsustainable. I think that a wider adoption of urban gardens, green roofs, and renewable energy would allow cities to operate better and would provide for a higher quality of life.
Page 35 talks about how Industrialization was the “main creative force of the 19th century” and how “Extraordinary changes of scale took place in the masses of buildings and the areas they covered.” I believe there is a link between the two and that the shift to an industrialized society definitely spurred the growth of cities and urban sprawl. Large buildings were put in to accommodate the growing amount of people who needed to work jobs in the city. Whether the industrialization movement increased our quality of life is up to debate.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteChapter 1:
ReplyDeleteCars: Because of the design of many places such as Northwood, there is no access to social life, or anything to do, for the driverless. Those without cars, or licenses are stuck on their home island of cement. As all of the places around them are private property, it is quite inhospitable.
Culture: Kunstler talks about how suburban sprawl lacks the character and culture of true villages and towns, because there is no real business there. It is only a place of living, "lacking any center, lacking any shops or public buildings, lacking places of work or of play".
Media: In the opening page, Kunstler quotes Judge Doom's evil dream as having "wonderful billboards as far as the eye can see". These billboards are a form of media that is used to advertise to the millions of drivers each day, who have extremely limited attention span. They cause distractions that can be responsible for many car accidents, and are a constant eye sore in many suburbanite's commute.
Chapter 2
Cars: This chapter talks about the creation of america. The first large travel device mentioned is the boat. Boats were used to get to america, not cars, as cars were not invented yet. Once in America, few roads were created, as boats were still the main form of travel. As the settlers mainly built settlements on bodies of water, it was easier to get from place to place along water, than to bushwack through the jungle of trees inland.
Culture: The towns created were very specific, usually full of like minded people. There was little travel from town to town, and a lot of the people who traveled were to get away from where they live, often due to cultural differences, and start a life elsewhere with people who had the same thoughts as them.
Media: Most of the drive to get settlers was through trading companies that wanted supplies. They would advertise the land in america as lush and full of promise, as well as much cheaper than land at home. The great expanses of land were not developed but could be, into whatever the pioneering individual could see fit.
Chapter 3
Cars: Washington DC was planned as a place that could potentially have cars. With the large roundabouts in place to create sitelines on any approaching enemies, the transition to vehicular traffic was potentially taken care of, as well as providing neat shortcuts (minus the traffic) across town.
Culture: Much of the settlement of the US was done in a way that was not cognizant of what lay on and below the lands being bought. As the land was partitioned into buyable square plots that spanned the country, the plots ignored the differences in waterways and mountains as compared to flat forestland or plains.
Media: Most towns were created without much thought for niceties, with capital gain being the only goal. Public art spaces were ignored, and government buildings were placed in non- economic hubs. This left many places, such as New York City as barren square blocks populated only by skyscraping buildings. This was true until the creation of central park. Some places, such as Williamsburg, made a conscious effort to make a city hub, and in it they place government buildings which gave the city what other places lacked, a feeling of grandeur.
FANTASTIC reflections on Kunstler's "evolving clusterfuck," colleagues.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to discussing in class soon.
REV!
Dr. Rob
Chapter 1
ReplyDelete1. Kunstler refers to the “kind of coma” that his old friends living in suburban Long Island fell into while growing up. Spurred by a lack of destination, they instead “congregated in furtive little holes—bedrooms and basements—to smoke pot and imitate the rock and roll bands who played on the radio”. This coma is only too easy for me to imagine, as a child who grew up surrounded by woods to explore. I can’t even imagine what life would have been like growing up somewhere without a backyard, and without any public gathering places.
2. The relationship of overdevelopment to children is only one aspect of the myriad of problems associated with suburbia. This sprawl is “where most American children grow up. It is where most economic activity takes place… this process of destruction, and the realm that it spawned, largely became our economy.” These developments now play a key role in our economic system.
3. Kunstler addresses the developments that destroy rural land, and effectively create a “geography of nowhere, that has simply ceased to be a credible human habitat”. We are eliminating human habitat as we extend into these rural areas, eliminating trees and things deemed ‘natural’ to be replaced with developments.
Chapter 2
1. Kunstler discusses American history, and how the 87 pilgrims who arrived to the bleak landscape of Plymouth Harbor during winter adopted the “utilitarian hope that something could be done with it, that it could be conquered, vanquished, and ultimately redeemed by godly men”. Historically, Americans have viewed wilderness as something “possibly wicked, possibly holy”, but more consistently as something to claim.
2. The Puritans arrival in Massachusetts began the township way of life in America. “Townships were granted to whole congregations who crossed the ocean as a group, bringing with them highly localized customs and farming practices”. When a minority did not agree or could not abide the way a town was run, they could “resolve their problem by “hiving out” to some unsettled area—always in a group—and creating a way of life with which they were at ease”. This is prevalent today as well, as developments often have a majority of one particular culture, and the presence of a truly diverse community is hard to find. Regularly, people of specific interests form semi-exclusive communities.
3. The communal nature of our historic ancestors is rare in America today. “The identification of… extreme individualism of property ownership with all that is sacred in American life has been the source of many problems”. Many Americans will reject anyone giving instructions on what to do with THEIR land, and America land-use laws are hinged upon whether an action would deprive someone of the economic value of their land. The individual makes land use decisions, without the support or input of a community or the idea of the presence of sacred places.
ReplyDeleteChapter 3
1. Our culture of individualism became more prevalent as the American government sold the frontier to incoming farmers. Drawing a grid and selling land accordingly failed to take into account the topography of the area, and “institutionalized the trend toward scattered farms, rather than agricultural villages, giving physical expression to the powerful myth that only lone individuals mattered in America”.
2. In Philadelphia, William Penn hoped to maintain the feeling of a “green country town”. By presenting people with one-acre parcels of land, lots would be bigger, and allow for significant green space. However, very quickly the owners of the one-acre parcels “subdivided them and sold them off… as blocks of row houses and warehouses began to go up along the busy waterfront”. Kunstler notes that in only a few decades, “blocks of three-story row houses, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, filled in the land between the two rivers”.
3. “The spread of slums, the hypergrowth and congestion of manufacturing cities, the noise and stench of the industrial process, debased urban life all over the Western world and led to a great yearning for escape”. Not only did this result in sprawl, but the car enabled this transition, the idea of “commuter towns” and reinforced our “need” for the automobile. It also created a flow of jobs OUT of the manufacturing area as stores and such followed the developments, causing those who live in the city to commute out for work.
Q: What are our alternatives, and how can we accomplish these? What is the most effective way to live sustainably?