Palen (2015) describes sprawl as the process that has contributed to the dependency of the automobile, the creation of low-density housing arrangements, and the segregated placement of commercial buildings in suburban communities. On the onset, sprawl may appear to be an ingenious product created from the expansion of urban cities; however, there are certain consequences that arise from sprawl that indicate that it is actually quite detrimental to many aspects of everyday living. The result of sprawl and its creation of suburban communities have directly contributed to the constant congestion of automobiles on the road and to the ecological destruction of land. This destruction of land is as equally devastating as the social disengagement
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Environmental damage is an inevitable element of urban sprawl and the development of suburban communities are not immune to this. Infrastructures typically seen in urban cities are needed in suburban communities for them to function. The suburban infrastructures normally involve include power lines, phone towers, landfills, water supply lines, and power boxes (Brown & Burns, 2006). Throughout Radiant City, children were seeing dancing on power boxes and playing around cell phone towers. These structures were directly in the vicinity of the homes that people were living in. Urban designer Ken Greenberg, acknowledges that suburbs aspire to attain the luxuries of urban cities by building stores and shopping centers within nearby houses, but fall short in perfecting this reproduction (Brown & Burns, 2006). Regrettably, it appears that in the process of trying to replicate urban cities, suburban developers are abolishing the lands and spaces that once housed farms and prominent historical centers. The destruction of valuable farmland is noted in a particular scene in Radiant City where the two younger main characters are standing next to a sign labeled “Copperfield” which, as they recognized, was a signpost for a future suburban development being built on a land that once pertained to a …show more content…
This pre-sprawl setup can be seen in urban cities from which the current sprawl arose from. Andres Duany offers his expert opinion during the final scenes of Radiant City by suggesting a “new urban smart growth” in order to fix the issues of sprawl, which necessitates suburban communities converting the area in front of their homes to buildings for rent or for places of business, and the building of affordable town homes and apartments on desolate parking lots where underachieving stores are located (Brown & Burns, 2006). In principal, it appears that the only cure for sprawl is to keep residential homes, businesses, and shopping centers compact. By conforming to this compact way of living, the need for driving many miles to get from one location to another would be solved, and the unnecessary destruction of land would be practically eliminated as well. Furthermore, the differentiation between common-interest developments and gated communities (CIDs) that are often seen as a result of sprawl must be
Environmental damage is an inevitable element of urban sprawl and the development of suburban communities are not immune to this. Infrastructures typically seen in urban cities are needed in suburban communities for them to function. The suburban infrastructures normally involve include power lines, phone towers, landfills, water supply lines, and power boxes (Brown & Burns, 2006). Throughout Radiant City, children were seeing dancing on power boxes and playing around cell phone towers. These structures were directly in the vicinity of the homes that people were living in. Urban designer Ken Greenberg, acknowledges that suburbs aspire to attain the luxuries of urban cities by building stores and shopping centers within nearby houses, but fall short in perfecting this reproduction (Brown & Burns, 2006). Regrettably, it appears that in the process of trying to replicate urban cities, suburban developers are abolishing the lands and spaces that once housed farms and prominent historical centers. The destruction of valuable farmland is noted in a particular scene in Radiant City where the two younger main characters are standing next to a sign labeled “Copperfield” which, as they recognized, was a signpost for a future suburban development being built on a land that once pertained to a …show more content…
This pre-sprawl setup can be seen in urban cities from which the current sprawl arose from. Andres Duany offers his expert opinion during the final scenes of Radiant City by suggesting a “new urban smart growth” in order to fix the issues of sprawl, which necessitates suburban communities converting the area in front of their homes to buildings for rent or for places of business, and the building of affordable town homes and apartments on desolate parking lots where underachieving stores are located (Brown & Burns, 2006). In principal, it appears that the only cure for sprawl is to keep residential homes, businesses, and shopping centers compact. By conforming to this compact way of living, the need for driving many miles to get from one location to another would be solved, and the unnecessary destruction of land would be practically eliminated as well. Furthermore, the differentiation between common-interest developments and gated communities (CIDs) that are often seen as a result of sprawl must be