The Cultural Antecedents as Precursors of Sprawl - Article Example

CULTURAL ANTECEDENTS AS PRECURSORS OF SPRAWL Introduction Human nature and our desire to maximise productivity has seen shift from simple individual settlements into complex networks of settlements known as urban centres. It is also these desires and nature that have resulted in these settlements experiencing a shift in centrality from the initial points. Increased societal pressures and cultural antecedents are mainly to blame for the change in the direction of human population expansions towards areas initially perceived as rural or remote and away from the urban centres which describe the term urban sprawl. This usually results in shifts in directions of movements of populations in a day with the city experiencing an outflow in the morning as the workforce reports to various occupational centres located outside the city. The most notable effect of this kind of shift is the creation of communities that are heavily reliant on usage of automobiles and other forms of transportation like the subway (McKEE, 2003). Although this phenomenon is replicated across most of the developed nations, the United States is a primary study subject on the concept as it provides the best examples (Rybczynski, 2005). This is because the nation’s cultural antecedents favour the occurrence of the concept. In the last couple or so decades, Americans have been behind the largest evolution of city construction in a century (Garreau, 1991). This is largely due to the fact that unlike many other regions of the world where the cities have one core and centre that is the focus of development, American cities are growing in a Los Angeles like fashion where there are multiple urban cores. Initially, the ideal cities in the US focused on developing skyscrapers at the centre with a background of one to five storey buildings making up a larger part of the city. In Europe however, the cities are continuous stretches of concrete jungle worked on over mile and miles of countryside. This contrasts with the American version where a city appears suddenly after miles of earth and desert (Lindstrom and Bartling, 2003). The contrast can be blamed on the cultural antecedents behind the two epitomes of western society. Initially, America was only native to red Indians with Europeans coming on ships to exploit the “new world”. This saw the quick development of the eastern seaboard cities like New York. The settlers then ventured further inland in covered wagons to exploit the resources of the vast lands between the east and west coasts. In between, the earth is dry and red with clots of veridigris bushes. However, it is also rich in minerals and various resources that are unevenly distributed in clusters. This meant that the settlers had to build camps around the clusters to enable their easy movement to the next ‘goldmine’. With time the camps saw the development of key elements of a town which are the bank, church, town halls and lots of one story frame buildings housing the residents distributed along one road that was the town’s artery (Gillham and MacLean, 2002). The idea was to build something that could perform the functions of an urban area whilst maintaining the ability to easily demolish and move away or build something new. Ever since, this has remained the main theme for the founding and development of towns and cities in the US (Talen, 2005). In most societies across the globe, a home is made of the house and all the belongings in them. However, the culture of the US population established by the founders differentiates between a house and a home. To them a home comprises of the collection of furnishings, objects, souvenirs and photographs that belong to them (Sartre, 1971). The home is a reflection of their own images and should therefore be a constitution of their dwellings inner landscape. A home can therefore be established wherever they are able to move these penates. This leaves the house as the outer shell that shelters the home enabling them to abandon it whenever they feel that they have outgrown it (Sartre, 1971). This creates a roving village kind of settling that facilitates sprawling. Although the residents do not literally take to the road in trucks, they have lack the internal temperature of solidification that would ensure that they stay in one place in the city. Americans are known to be one of the most stubborn people when it comes to changing their beliefs or opinions. It therefore comes as no surprise that they like to change their environments rather than adjust themselves. In the modern world, old cities like Venice and Paris in Europe are celebrated and labelled romantic getaways because of their old architecture that has been in place for eons. The cultural antecedents in these regions allow for the continued existence of these structures even after people have moved away. This contrasts sharply with the American scenario where there are architectural marvels that by great artist that have experienced changes like the university of Virginia (Wills, 2002). Whenever a division of a city is prospering, the elite of the society alongside those who want to go higher on the societal ladder move to these regions in flocks. With time, the area becomes overcrowded with the social amenities provided being stretched beyond capacity. In five years the areas become “polluted” and the previously fashionable neighborhood drops from being the center of the city into being the outskirt (Soule, 2006). The initial inhabitants move to a newer fashionable neighborhood while the poor move in to the outskirt which becomes dilapidated (Bruegmann, 2006). This shifts the growth of the city away from the center towards the outskirts which describes urban sprawl. However, the American culture further sprawls the cities. When the city centers became polluted, the Americans moved to other places in the metropolitan areas of the city like New Jersey in New York (Coppage, 2015). This meant that the distances that these people had to travel to access necessities and go to work had increased. The common American can only walk for six hundred feet on a street before getting into a taxi, car or the subway. This means that the shift had created a slightly significant increase in the cost of living. It also created an opportunity for businesses to open shop in the new regions of settlements. The effect is that businesses spring up in these downtown areas which come along with hospitals, tall buildings entertainment, corporate headquarters, hotels, shopping centers and office spaces that mean white collar jobs (Rees, 2014). All of these are components of a functioning urban center, which is still in the region of a city. Nevertheless, one cannot forget to talk about President Thomas Jefferson and his architectural achievements when discussing the precursors of sprawl in America. Jefferson, who is the only United States president who was a great artist designed the University of Virginia and his Monticello home, which are described as architectural marvels (Wills, 2002). His works especially on the campus have received praise as well as influencing the design of settlements across America in later years. These works’ are especially important due to their arrangement that lacked similarity to any at the time. The campus design incorporates almost everything that a small town needs. This includes a network of roads, residential areas and hotels, all of which have remained functional to date (Wills, 2002). The “academic village” is a precursor to modern day sprawl as it was designed to bring the services that the students would need to them, instead of having them leaves the campus to access them. The same is reflected in the American cities where malls, market places, hospitals and work centers are being moved away from city centers to the residential areas resulting in sprawl. Conclusion It is true that congestion, reduced agricultural lands, the rise in cost of living and traffic snarl ups cause urban centers to sprawl (Miller, 2015). However, the discussion has shown that there is more to the causes of urban sprawl than just these factors. A general glance of this shows that from the time of the founding fathers until now, the American cultural antecedents have resulted in the movement of the Urbanism essence which is wealth creation towards the residential areas facilitating urban sprawl and the creation of edge cities. References Bruegmann, R. (2006). Sprawl: A compact history. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. Coppage, J. (2015). The Conservatism of New Urbanism. The American Conservative. Retrieved from http://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-conservatism-of-new-urbanism/ [ 21 February 2015] Garreau, J. (antecedents). Edge city. New York: Doubleday. Gillham, O and MacLean, A. (2002) The Limitless City: A Primer of the Urban Sprawl Debate. Washington, DC: Island Press. Lindstrom, M. and Bartling, H. (2003). Suburban Sprawl: Culture, Theory and politics. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. McKEE, B. (2003). As Suburbs Grow, So Do Waistlines. Nytimes.com. 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