Urban Planning In Michael Apted's Thunder Land In Thunder Heart

Native Americans have always had conflict with the colonists ever since they settled the North American continent in 1607. Since then, the natives have been pushed west by encroaching settlements. Similarly, “[t]he Sioux had the misfortune of becoming intimately acquainted with the westward thrust of American expansion at a time when American attitudes toward Indians had grown cynical” (Sioux). This had a significant effect on the culture of the Sioux as they began to assimilate with American culture. The culture of the Oglala Sioux and how it affects the urban planning of their reservation is exemplified in Michael Apted’s film Thunder Heart. In Thunder Heart, the urban planning of the Oglala Sioux land is displayed as heavily influenced by

This directly effects the amount income that they receive. Adequate urban planning is hard when the Oglala Sioux have “unemployment as high as 60 percent, little to no infrastructure, few entitlements, a safety net that never was, no industry to speak of, and a housing crisis that has been dire not for five years but since the reservation’s founding in 1855” (Treuer). These problems are noticeable throughout the movie, especially when Ray Levoi mentions that the reservation looks like a third world country. Trash is scattered everywhere likely due to a lack of waste management. Waste management is an important part of urban planning, but was neglected in this case since the tribe does not have the funds to support garbage trucks or other waste management services since they are not provided by the United States Government. This completely changes the atmosphere of the reservation as it appears to be run down and extremely poor, like a third world country as was mentioned before. Since the tribe has little to no money, this causes a lack in urban planning as there are no funds to support development, thus leaving the landscape littered and overgrown by plants, weeds, and