MD wrote:
> Ah, the naive 50s and 60s!
Mark -
you need to go back farther than the 50's and 60's. I'm surprised at you -
a supposedly well read indivual!
>You can see how failed a dream it was.
The "failed dream" was the result of developers grasping onto the style of
Modernism as a sales tool for the benefit of their own hip pockets. The
root of the Modernist's ideal (egalitarianism, etc.), was bypassed. Corbu
was correct when he was worried about "American Gangsters" stealing his
designs for profit.
> And the
> car also helped alienate entire urban populations.
You are beginning to sound like a New Urbanist for sure now - but like
them, you are generalizing. The role of the automobile in American life is
what American life is all about - what it has strived for - its
representation as a machine allowing freedom and access to the wide open
spaces of this very large country is exactly the ideals this country was
founded upon. Lamenting the fact that everyone is driving around and "
alienating (sic) entire urban populations" is moot. Dealing with the issue
as a design problem is the real challenge.
> Sure, you're equal, more
> or less, if you have a car.
I would disagree. Someone who drives a Lincoln Navigator is hardly on par
with someone driving a 67 Chevelle with primer on the doors and duct tape
stopping a rip in the convertible top. The automotive industry has made
sure that Henry Ford's idea of the automible being the great emancipator of
the people of this country is a place where class and privelege is most
defined.
> But if you're too poor to have a car, you
> probably are stuck in the urban center,
More likely in a trailer or mobile home. Middle America is a very different
place than the urban *centers* of east or west coast metropolis.
wayde
_______________________________________
Wayde Tardif
architecture
graphic design
_______________________________________
> Ah, the naive 50s and 60s!
Mark -
you need to go back farther than the 50's and 60's. I'm surprised at you -
a supposedly well read indivual!
>You can see how failed a dream it was.
The "failed dream" was the result of developers grasping onto the style of
Modernism as a sales tool for the benefit of their own hip pockets. The
root of the Modernist's ideal (egalitarianism, etc.), was bypassed. Corbu
was correct when he was worried about "American Gangsters" stealing his
designs for profit.
> And the
> car also helped alienate entire urban populations.
You are beginning to sound like a New Urbanist for sure now - but like
them, you are generalizing. The role of the automobile in American life is
what American life is all about - what it has strived for - its
representation as a machine allowing freedom and access to the wide open
spaces of this very large country is exactly the ideals this country was
founded upon. Lamenting the fact that everyone is driving around and "
alienating (sic) entire urban populations" is moot. Dealing with the issue
as a design problem is the real challenge.
> Sure, you're equal, more
> or less, if you have a car.
I would disagree. Someone who drives a Lincoln Navigator is hardly on par
with someone driving a 67 Chevelle with primer on the doors and duct tape
stopping a rip in the convertible top. The automotive industry has made
sure that Henry Ford's idea of the automible being the great emancipator of
the people of this country is a place where class and privelege is most
defined.
> But if you're too poor to have a car, you
> probably are stuck in the urban center,
More likely in a trailer or mobile home. Middle America is a very different
place than the urban *centers* of east or west coast metropolis.
wayde
_______________________________________
Wayde Tardif
architecture
graphic design
_______________________________________