After the end of the Second World War American cities saw the development of suburban communities. These large planned communities moved a large number of people from the dense urban areas and spread them out on the outskirts of that same city. As the people moved away from the city the business followed as well. The distances that these communities are from the city is dependent on how long people are willing to travel for and by how efficiently an automobile can move individuals from one place to another. As cars have become the main form of transportation vast highway systems have been created to connect the cities with the suburbs that surround it. This concept has come to be known as Urban sprawl.
There are a number of negative effects associated with urban sprawl, most of which are directly related to distance between each building, street, neighborhood, retail area, and city. Having high automobile dependency requires large streets in order to move all of the residents of the community effectively. With larger streets more people will use these for traveling and will just increase the traffic, which is the one of the leading causes of air pollution. Aside from the roads each car also needs a location to park at home, work and retail locations. This paved infrastructure diverts money from other public needs such as good schools, government programs, armed services, police, and firehouses (Duany 66). The paved infrastructure does not only affect us economically, it can also effects the environment. The term “heat island" describes built up areas that are hotter than neighboring rural areas. Heat islands can affect communities by increasing summertime peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, air pollution and greenhous...
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...es: a Critique of the New Urbanism. Ed. Todd W. Bressi. New York: Rizzoli, 2002. 67-76. Print.
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to fund public programs or make general improvements throughout the community. Urban sprawl is expensive not only on people’s wallets, but is taxing on their health, the environment, their relationships. The.. After examining all of the problems associated with urban sprawl it is hard not to question how America lost the genuine communities of old and adopted the new community of
The modern story of developed areas is a move from the inner city to the suburbs. This decentralization of metropolitan areas has left urban areas neglected. Such a transformation has had negative consequences, because it has inherently meant the abandonment of those left behind in urban centers. Furthermore, the issue is complicated by the fact that the distinction between those moving to the suburbs and those left behind has been defined largely by race. As Kain notes,
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the race to modernity begins. Rapid changes start to happen in Chicago and also throughout the United States of America. Although Erik Larson’s novel, The Devil in the White City, takes place in Chicago, the events taking place there will reflect the progress towards modernization of the entire country. Cities throughout the United States are growing in proportion to the growing cities. Chicago is only one of the multiple cities in America that goes through major construction and population growth but this city provides a great example of how modernity affects cities and how they function. With the ongoing renovations of the city, Chicago seems to be a city splitting in two. Chicago will have a sophisticated
Segrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban Crisis. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press, 1996.
Jacobs views diversity as the number of ways in which limited areas of space are allocated, as opposed to having an inherent racial or cultural connotation. Jacobs emphasizes that various types of business and residences are the elements of prospering city neighborhoods. Jacobs begins to explore three main myths. These myths are arguments often cited by city planners against diversity. To begin, the first myth that Jacobs attempts to discredit is that diversity is unattractive. She repudiates this assertion by saying that the opposite is in fact true, in which homogeneity is unappealing. I believe that it is quite detrimental when city planners attempt to create a contrived atmosphere of diversity in order to conceal the existing homogeneity. This is accomplished by artificially building different shapes and styles of buildings to give outsiders the impression of diversity. Jacobs underscores the flaws of contrived diversity in the following excerpt:
Finally, this paper will explore the “end product” that exists today through the works of the various authors outlined in this course and explain how Los Angeles has survived many decades of evolution, breaking new grounds and serving as the catalyst for an urban metropolis.
Wirth, L. (1938). Urban as a Way of Life. In R.T. Legates, & F. Stout (Eds.). The City Reader (pp. 90-97). New York, NY: Routledge
Sociologist … explained that open pattern of suburb is because of seeking environment free noise, dirt and overcrowding that are in the centre of cities. He gave examples of these cities as St. John’s wood, Richmond, Hampstead in London. Chestnut Hill and Germantown in Philadelphia. He added that suburban are only for the rich and high class. This plays into the hands of the critical perspectives that, “Cities are not so much the product of a quasi-natural “ecological” unfolding of social differentiation and succession, but of a dynamic of capital investment and disinvestment. City space is acted on primarily as a commodity that is bought and sold for profit, “(Little & McGivern, 2013, p.616).
Susan S. Fainstein, Scott Campbell. 2003. Readings in Urban Theory. Second Edition. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
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