This is Crazy

 

The history of American urban sprawl and suburbia is not a topic I feel confident to speak on in any way - as I didn’t grow up in North America I don’t have first hand experience of “family life” in an urban or suburban environment. It is nevertheless a defining, and intriguing, part of the recent historic fabric of American society. It was admittedly shocking when I moved here to see the dependance on vehicular travel for not just entertainment or amusement but also travel to work and even groceries and other such necessities. Relative to my experience growing up in Turkey on the Mediterranean coast, the intensely separate “sectors” of urban and suburban life is shocking. Massive grocery stores sit isolated from residential developments on the highway, and save for a few major city centers, pretty much the only reason one would walk down a downtown street is for leisure rather than necessity. As I learn about the recent history of the U.S., I understand the massive impact the plentiful availability of land had in the sprawled development of cities and towns. The sinister side of American sprawl is that it allowed a level of physical segregation and separation in society stemming from racism and systematic oppression that most modern cities around the world would never be able to facilitate. Now cities and suburbs in the U.S. are struggling to deal with and address widespread gentrification and loss of intermingled culture and diversity centers. Not only is this extremely detrimental to society’s production of relevant and representative art and technology, it’s also severely unjust and disproportionately affects certain groups of people. Many cities around the world have dealt with effects from separations in society and racial oppression, but rarely has the struggle been so physically representative as it is in the suburban-urban sprawl of the U.S.