those crazy jetsons

Remember when George got so mad at the SJC report about the Federal Vision? Those were good times, good times indeed.

I am now starting to understand his frustration. When you see something that is not right, in fact it is wrong, it is hard not to get fired up about it. For George it was procedural issues, for me it is how we live with blinders on and jump into the water when really the pool is empty.

I watched this video this morning, and it made me so sad. What do you notice about 'the future', beside the fact that most of the items are already here (decentralization of urban cores, t.v's, high speed interstate system, ect...)? Could it be the isolation? The subjects were the only persons depicted in the short video.

I have always thought that suburbia produces isolation and anti-community, but maybe our quest for isolation brought about suburbia. I have posted previously about how our attitudes towards items can be seen in our architecture (not the form of building per say, but the form of our cities) and my assumption has been that our attitudes are only subconsciously reflected in the form of our cities, but now I am thinking that it is more blatant than that. I think man is on a quest to remove himself from all forms of community and will go to any length to preserve his isolation. This includes disguising this quest under the auspices of 'comfort' and 'ease of life'.

As an urbanist and a designer I struggle with the fact that cities and landscape adapt based on needs and resources and how the 'modern' cities is a placeless city (meaning that with globalization and 'virtual resources' it can be placed anywhere and thus need not be anywhere) and what that means for our future. Often times I think that if we were able to switch to a more centralized model for cities (a polis and a hinterlands idea) that we would be able to solve a lot of our problems and provide more opportunity for community, but then I think this is more of a nostalgic approach and is as bad as the 'New Urbanist' petting zoos that are so popular now. Other times I think that a more nodal system would be a better fit for our current practices. This would be where areas of a megaopolis would 'congeal' into distinct nodes that serve the population around it but can also be served by the greater polis. We see this to an extent in any major city large enough to support such a system (think Manhattan or The Central West End or Mountainbrook Village). Maybe our focus should be to identify these nodes and develop them instead of our current practice of a 'fairy ring' type structure where the fringes pull from the middle.

Let me end this Edemaic ramble by saying watch the video and let me know what you think. Sometimes I get so narrow minded in my focus I don't see the forest from the trees.