The sprawl of cities has been a phenomena ever since the car and highway system made it easily viable. Back in the 1940’s, GM bought out the trolley and electric-rail lines of National City Lines (NCL) in most cities in the Unites States, dismantling their infrastructure, in an attempt to monopolize surface transportation. They promoted tires, gasoline, and cars to the American public to purchase. Roads were pushed into legislature and the federal highway was born. In lieu of public transit, people began buying more cars because more of the infrastructure for them got built and was the only way then to get around quickly. It was advertised as the new frontier that every American could freely navigate wherever they wanted; to new cities, to new exploration of the country and wilderness, or the freedom to be liberated from living in the city. This became the icon of independence, hot rods, muscle cars, and teen rebellion! This was a terrible ideal to put into the American head and has had negative impacts on community, neighborhoods, housing, and cities ever since.
Negative effects sprawl is commonly associated with are, the abandonment of urban centers and cities, less time in the day to enjoy due to long commutes, and isolation (both from neighbors and the rest of the community from lack of community and urban fabric). Houses continue to spread further and further from cities, big box department stores (not community fabric) are the only things that follow. People are isolated from walking to anything. Anything at all. Maybe the local housing addition’s playground but that is about it. They are stuck on an island…an island on which the only way to get to anything is a 5-20 minute car ride. All of the shopping and food centers are located in one area that all of the housing additions must drive to. They are not spread throughout the housing. Even then, there are no local places to eat, maybe a local Mexican or Asian restaurant but other than that, everything is a chain. A chain that uses the same junk ingredients in the rest of the country from junk ways of growing the food. Too many hormones and pesticides and genetic modification on everything. There is no such thing as local in suburbia. To get to work they have to drive anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour if they are in the central city location. Why not just live near work? Yeah, brilliant idea right, it would be nice if people would get that in their heads instead of continue being caught up on the “American Dream” with having a brand new track home built for them in a new addition. Repopulate the old additions that were once neighborhoods built for the city. Where every house has some character and is different from its neighbor. Where there are most likely mature trees due to the age of the area. But no, people would rather go through the same routine every day of getting frustrated in morning rush hour, then again in the evening, wasting all that time on the road when that could have been spent with their families, and not ever building community because by the time they get home they eat dinner and go to bed and repeat. Wake-up, Commute, Work, Commute, get stopped in traffic for an hour, Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Suburbia has created zombies ladies and gentleman. zom·bie/ˈzämbē/noun
A slave to the road, long commutes, and daycare late-pickup fines, synonyms: living dead, suburbian dweller, "Why is dad always such a zombie?" Along with being isolated from everything out of walking distance (everything), people are isolated from other people. Suburbia’s prominent feature is the garage! Standing proudly in front of the rest of the ugly house is the garage doors, equally as ugly as the façade. People click their garage-door-openers and quietly drive into their houses unnoticed by the rest of the world. Nobody is ever seen again until the next morning, as a car is pulling out of the garage. Nobody interacts in suburbia! Sure the local kiddos might interact…maybe but as far as I have seen, kids don’t play like they used to. There is too much technology to keep them inside their McMansion. They barely step foot into the wild of their manicured lawns it might be dangerous and they could get a grass stain. It might be too dangerous to play with the other neighbor’s kids too, if something goes wrong you might get sued for stepping on sally’s toe too hard on accident. Better lock yourself away in your house with all the electronics that make you happy, all the social media that make you “social”, yet leave you so empty, and so without friends. The rare breed of the suburbianite might come out to grill on game days, Fourth of July, or any other grilling season, but other than that, they stay secluded and repeat the same pattern of work and commute every day, eat at the same boring restaurants every week with very limited choice due to distance of things, and shop at the same boring big-box store. It seems to me like that is no life, people are a slave to the system if they live in suburbia. They are a slave to the same routine and never getting to do anything else. Never having the time. Too much of their time is spent driving. If they do have friends, it takes their friends 20 minutes to come over, 20 minutes to go out to eat, an hour to get to work; where has the day gone?! A good example that was completely revolutionary was Glenwood Park in Atlanta. This was a designed addition, however their goal was to create community, walkability, and a sense of community. There were restaurants, offices and businesses, houses, apartments and condos, parks, sidewalks, and other features that made it a destination. People within the community did not need to drive anywhere, they can hop on a bike or walk. People can meet with other people, because they had a front porch to sit on and talk, there was no prominent garage facing the street as if to say “go away don’t bother me”. The streets are also appropriate for walking, biking, and driving to all interact in the same space. This allows people to work in an office there or local business instead of commute in town. What was actually going to be built instead was a Lowes, Target, Kroger, Best Buy, and other smaller box stores with large surface parking lots. Glenwood Park project beat out the isolated blacktop design because it is what people wanted. They rejected the idea of another chain coming into to that space. Glenwood might still feel isolated as it only exists within itself and once you step out of the boundaries you are in suburbia again, but at least it is an attempt and not just a repeat of every development out there. It might be a “fake” community center but at least they tried to do better than their precedents.
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Research TopicsThese are articles or items that I have read and invested time researching to further develop my knowledge in the field of architecture and the built environment Archives
December 2016
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