Quote: (06-18-2017 12:22 PM)puckerman Wrote:
There's something else I should add about small-town life--towns 10,000 and under. Small towns are about the only places which are pedestrian friendly and bicycle friendly. Small towns generally have grids, so traffic is well-distributed. Mobility is easy for cars, bikes, and people.
This certainly isn't the case for suburbs in America.
Because a lot of us grew up in the suburbs, we take them as the normal state of things. We are destitute of culture because they are destitute of culture, and we take our cars as symbols of freedom, and the fact that we have no neighborliness as the same thing.
Suburbs were designed because of cheap oil, and no one ever thought the low cost gravy train would stop. They are, in the words of James Howard Kunstler, a " technosis externality clusterfuck."
I will leave it to Zelcorpion to explain whether or not they were designed purposefully by the ruling elites to atomize and alienate people. I will only say that even if they weren't they have done the job well.
The salient problem about suburbs, says Kunstler, is that "these are places that are not worth caring about."
Here is one of Kunstler's Ted Talk on the suburbs called "The Ghastly Tragedy of the Suburbs."
An intelligent, funny, persuasive speaker, he puts a lot of his emphasis on how the box stores and malls and depressing architecture impoverishes the human spirit.
No real downtown to speak of, no central square, no place for civic activity, everyone tied to the system, primarily by their jobs in nearby cities, and no real time to get involved partially because of their long commutes, suburbs throttle community, and by extension family, through anomie and meaninglessness.
Coincidence or not, this serves the ruling elites, having everyone too tired and busy to think about their lives and go downtown to talk it over with members of their communites.
There is no good reason for walkability or bike lanes, or anything that might make you feel healthy and happy and connected to your community. It only gets in the way of dependence on the car for your lifestyle, which obviously separates you from other people for a large portion of your day.
I would say that small towns, and small town ethos and ethics, aren't only unlike the experience of most people in the civilized world, they are actually antithetical to the plans of the big boys holding hands around the world.
You don't want self sufficiency, or civic pride, or neighborhood associations, or bikable walkable cities. You want a lot of work zombies, over stressed, tired, cooped up in their cars, doped up on their meds, and blue faced from the reflection of their phones.
Think I have quoted this before. Ralph Nader said it best, when he was debating with some cookie cutter conservative. Nader was speaking in favor of public civic spaces, and the other guy said, you can do all that at the mall, the mall is the new civic space. Nader pointed out that it was against the rules at many malls to hand out political tracts. Other guy shrugged.
Nader says, "Hey Thomas Paine, no pamphlets at the King George Mall."