Isolation in Place

Infrastructure played a tremendous part in the growth of the suburbs, as the (interstate) highway network connected cities to their surroundings and beyond to other cities. Along these arteries suburbia grew, but as this network has begun to fail or become overloaded, the connection between places is strained.

During the semester in Charleston last fall we discussed some of the issues surrounding large urban planning projects and the state of the medical district, which are commonly in, and currently exist as respectively, isolated parts of the city. Improved infrastructure and better networks for connection across the city were common themes in the research and student proposals.

John C. Keats offers an opinion in The Suburbs: The New American Nightmare that suburban developments are just that, not communities, in that they lack program beyond bedrooms. Many of the large urban developments that we studied in Charleston are victims of this same problem, lots of repetitive housing models with little diversity in urban program.

This is not an exclusively urban problem, as identified by Retrofitting Suburbia, where the suburbs have developed their own issues of isolation, lack of diversity or limited provision for needs within an immediate area. Improved networks and programmatic diversity, common strategies in an urban environment, can help to resolve these issues in both settings. If we are critical of the isolated nature in which we house ourselves and encourage development of actual communities, places of diversity and activity, we should be able to develop a sense of place or uniqueness in an actual community setting.

East Central Lofts - Charleston

Suburban Tract Housing - Somewhere, USA

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