Currently writing an article "Territory and Suburbia", what technologies had created them, involve them, and use them. Moreover, I'm interested in the politics at all scales. Would anyone like to offer any information they may have on the topic? Feelings?
So much has been written and said on the topic, yet at the same time fallen on deaf ears, it feels like beating a dead horse. No?
I'll try to contribute at least somethin'.
Here is a recent story about new type of regional politicians in suburbs of Toronto. They are much more interested in sustainable development and agriculture than ever before.
What noone speaks of is the fact that it's the very unsustainability of the developments that make the suburbs appealing to the consumer. Get more space for less money. If you were to put a stop on that, what incentive do you give people to desire living on the outskirts?
yes in a way it is like beating a dead horse. a large part of this i might add is the technologies involved. automobile, telephone, photography. its interesting that the technologies we use today are 50 years (you get the point) behind what the military has in research or effect. these things have also created suburbia.
also there is an anthropological piece with interest in the modern human and territory; proxemics to be clearer.
anyways as you can tell im a bit unorganized on this so far. this would have been helpful in the initial post. apologies and thank yous.
The Geography of Nowhere (1993) by James Howard Kunstler is also excellent. I aced my residential studio back in the day by quoting his and Jackson's books.
Im not going to beat the dead horse but Ill throw a couple books I read while studying my thesis called Transformation thru Transportation: A look at transportation in Suburia.
Read a few excerpts from "How Cities Work" by Alex Marshall
The one about Kissimmee, Fla is particularly interesting in how it was a small port city, Disney came through and started to develop its parks and attractions and also tried to create a small suburban community for its workers, at the same time was destroying Kissimmee and in turn has become a complete failure: Ah La Disney!
I feel like Im stating the obvious when I say read "Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs
in terms of food - Michael Pollan is pretty obvious, but "hungry city" by Carolyn steel is a decent intro. includes fun facts like in Great Britain, in 1950, only 8% of households had a refrigerator -
btw - modern electric fridges (and freezers) weren't widely available and relatively cheap until the 1940s... and a lot of the preservative advancements happened during WWII...
yes it seems that all technologies we use were the military's first. oh what wwii did to this unholy planet. i have a friend who works at nasa and says that things like the iphone are a joke compared to whats going on in that place. can't wait to see whats next...floating suburbs?
floating suburbs could be cool. suburbia and food is great topic.
the above books are good. also worth looking at is "building suburbia" by dolores hayden, and "dreaming the rational city" by m. christine boyer (fantastic book!). so many of the best books on the city are written by women.
to be fair and balanced you might also get something useful from "don't call it sprawl" by william t. bogart, and "sprawl" by robert bruegmann. these are both kind of polemical but make strong points worth thinking about. also absolutely recommend "the new suburban history", edited by kevin kruse and thomas sugrue. they point out that suburbs are much more than the symbolic places most of the above books take for granted and look instead at how suburbia is connected to important cultural movements.
kunstler is worth reading for fun but not to be taken too seriously. he is wilfully ignorant, highly polemical and often misleading. kinda like glen beck but not as scary ;-)
Jump's right about the need to dig deeper than the simplistic tropes of "suburbia" and "sprawl" when looking at peripheral urbanization. Look also at Greg Hise's "Magnetic Los Angeles" and Richard Longstreth's "City Center to Regional Mall."
the book "America and Suburbia' goes more into the philosophical realm of identity tied with the rise of the Suburbs. Also, Berger's Drosscape is pretty essential.
Dec 11, 10 3:05 pm ·
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Territory and Suburbia
Currently writing an article "Territory and Suburbia", what technologies had created them, involve them, and use them. Moreover, I'm interested in the politics at all scales. Would anyone like to offer any information they may have on the topic? Feelings?
So much has been written and said on the topic, yet at the same time fallen on deaf ears, it feels like beating a dead horse. No?
I'll try to contribute at least somethin'.
Here is a recent story about new type of regional politicians in suburbs of Toronto. They are much more interested in sustainable development and agriculture than ever before.
What noone speaks of is the fact that it's the very unsustainability of the developments that make the suburbs appealing to the consumer. Get more space for less money. If you were to put a stop on that, what incentive do you give people to desire living on the outskirts?
yes in a way it is like beating a dead horse. a large part of this i might add is the technologies involved. automobile, telephone, photography. its interesting that the technologies we use today are 50 years (you get the point) behind what the military has in research or effect. these things have also created suburbia.
also there is an anthropological piece with interest in the modern human and territory; proxemics to be clearer.
anyways as you can tell im a bit unorganized on this so far. this would have been helpful in the initial post. apologies and thank yous.
if you haven't already read kenneth jackson's crabgrass frontier it is required reading for understanding the development of suburbs
The Geography of Nowhere (1993) by James Howard Kunstler is also excellent. I aced my residential studio back in the day by quoting his and Jackson's books.
Im not going to beat the dead horse but Ill throw a couple books I read while studying my thesis called Transformation thru Transportation: A look at transportation in Suburia.
Read a few excerpts from "How Cities Work" by Alex Marshall
The one about Kissimmee, Fla is particularly interesting in how it was a small port city, Disney came through and started to develop its parks and attractions and also tried to create a small suburban community for its workers, at the same time was destroying Kissimmee and in turn has become a complete failure: Ah La Disney!
I feel like Im stating the obvious when I say read "Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs
Bugious Utopias was pretty good too
food production and distribution is pretty huge... the advent of things like the supermarket, refrigeration, preservatives and canning, etc...
any kind of modern system - water, waste management, electricity, etc....
the auto-centricity stuff is beaten to death...
in terms of food - Michael Pollan is pretty obvious, but "hungry city" by Carolyn steel is a decent intro. includes fun facts like in Great Britain, in 1950, only 8% of households had a refrigerator -
btw - modern electric fridges (and freezers) weren't widely available and relatively cheap until the 1940s... and a lot of the preservative advancements happened during WWII...
yes it seems that all technologies we use were the military's first. oh what wwii did to this unholy planet. i have a friend who works at nasa and says that things like the iphone are a joke compared to whats going on in that place. can't wait to see whats next...floating suburbs?
floating suburbs could be cool. suburbia and food is great topic.
the above books are good. also worth looking at is "building suburbia" by dolores hayden, and "dreaming the rational city" by m. christine boyer (fantastic book!). so many of the best books on the city are written by women.
to be fair and balanced you might also get something useful from "don't call it sprawl" by william t. bogart, and "sprawl" by robert bruegmann. these are both kind of polemical but make strong points worth thinking about. also absolutely recommend "the new suburban history", edited by kevin kruse and thomas sugrue. they point out that suburbs are much more than the symbolic places most of the above books take for granted and look instead at how suburbia is connected to important cultural movements.
kunstler is worth reading for fun but not to be taken too seriously. he is wilfully ignorant, highly polemical and often misleading. kinda like glen beck but not as scary ;-)
Jump's right about the need to dig deeper than the simplistic tropes of "suburbia" and "sprawl" when looking at peripheral urbanization. Look also at Greg Hise's "Magnetic Los Angeles" and Richard Longstreth's "City Center to Regional Mall."
Kruse and Sugrue is great!
the book "America and Suburbia' goes more into the philosophical realm of identity tied with the rise of the Suburbs. Also, Berger's Drosscape is pretty essential.
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