This book seriously upsets me.
Jul. 18th, 2006 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterI'm still working on The Geography of Nowhere, by James Howard Kunstler. I am reading a section about major problems with suburban design, and how suburbs disenfranchise children, the elderly, and people without cars, because they have been designed with cars in mind, and not pedestrians or bicyclists.
Perhaps it doesn't take much to convince me that suburbs are a huge problem because I have no car and I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a place where I was *not* so seriously disenfranchised.
I'm reminded of some slightly lighter reading--A Walk in the Woods, where Bill Bryson talks about an expedition he takes to get to a store partway through his hike along the Appalachian trail--through ditches, over fences, along busy streets. Much, much more dangerous than most of the hiking Bryson does along the actual trail.
How is it that our nation came to underwrite the creation of so many enormous superhighways, but cannot seem to build sidewalks or pedestrian-friendly places? Well, that's what TGON is about. But seriously, this book makes me want to read more about places that are doing a better job. Of course, Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums would have us understand that globalization and international monetary policies have ruined any hopes for such things.
Lo, the humanity.
Perhaps it doesn't take much to convince me that suburbs are a huge problem because I have no car and I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a place where I was *not* so seriously disenfranchised.
I'm reminded of some slightly lighter reading--A Walk in the Woods, where Bill Bryson talks about an expedition he takes to get to a store partway through his hike along the Appalachian trail--through ditches, over fences, along busy streets. Much, much more dangerous than most of the hiking Bryson does along the actual trail.
How is it that our nation came to underwrite the creation of so many enormous superhighways, but cannot seem to build sidewalks or pedestrian-friendly places? Well, that's what TGON is about. But seriously, this book makes me want to read more about places that are doing a better job. Of course, Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums would have us understand that globalization and international monetary policies have ruined any hopes for such things.
Lo, the humanity.
