Cars are great: they let us drive fast, travel far, and feel free. But in addition to their negative environmental impact they also promote sprawl and can isolate us. Social capital guru, Robert Putnam, estimates that every ten minutes of commute time spent alone diminishes social capital (your ability to build community) by ten percent.
Does modern transportation tend to destroy or build community? Here's a simple thought experiment: Imagine a day without transportation. Would that isolate or connect you and your community? Here's where you come in. Document a typical day of transportation in your life (car, truck, walking, motorbike, Segway, school bus, streetcar, subway, etc). As you go about your day, consider how modern transportation changes your interaction with other citizens and your community. Record some of your voyages and post your commentary, thoughts, and recordings. As an exciting experiment, try a car cleanse - spending a day without motorized transportation (you can still walk, bike, or swim through your community) and explore how transportation affects your connection to your community!
4 comments:
We both has trouble following his initial argument. It was hard to tell where he was going with the "Places Not Worth Caring About". It was hard to determine if he thought the problem was the process of architecture or the architecture itself. As the talk went on however, his point became more clear. Sterling agreed with the section about rescaling and conserving our resources by ending the suburban sprawl. Lindsey agreed with the note about the 3,ooo mile caesar salad, our nation goes to great lengths to get products that could be grown in the state. We don't know if suburban sprawl will end but the theory would work if everyone agreed to downsize and live closer together.
http://maria12256.wetpaint.com/page/Commonweal
See Urban sprawl lab parts 1 and 2 (the first part was done by Fola, the second by Maria)
My five solutions are lowering gas prices, banks should stop loaning money that dont have, stop firing people from work and start hiring more people if you have the money to pay them, use more men as construction workers besides mexicans, hire kids at the age of 15 and those are my five solutions to fixing our economy and making it better.
I love Kunstler. I have loved him since I first read his book City in Mind several years back. As a sociologist, and as a pastor, I believe his critique of suburban sprawl, and the eventual degeneration of our love for "place" perfectly captures the problems we face as a nation. We must be willing to dream new dreams of creating new community together in this country, or else, we will end up moving, or not caring about defending ourselves.
Thanks for posting this message. Amazing how brothers think alike.
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