GM's futurama at New York World's fair 1939

futurama was the General Motor's exhibit on the New York world's fair in 1939. it showed a big model of the (visionary) perfect society 20 years into the future. (that was 1960). today we could watch the same pictures as a complete description of most of what the country looks like today.

it is amazing how "well" the experiments turned out. it has been many years since GM admitted to have anything to do with forming our physical environment, but chances are that their role has been bigger than we know of.

the crossing point of two future motorways.

the crossing point of LBJ fwy and N Central Expressway,
Dallas, TX

here are the links to some of the clips.

part 1

part 2

garden city

the city i am in is a garden city. there are communal parks, thousands of private gardens, golf courses and tree lined streets.

it strikes me over and over again how much of Ebenezer Howards garden city is realized here in the american wild wild west. convalecent homes, colleges, childerns cottage homes, a river, lakes and forests. all is present.

the same area contains heavy industries, gas- and oil pumps, and landfills.

the big difference is the scale. Arlington has 350 370 inhabitants. the metroplex has 6 141 000 inhabitants. garden city has 32 000. still it is amazing how such a nice green place can be so dirty and inhumane at a closer look. 99 percent of the green areas are never used for anything.

mr president

watched news conference with president Bush live on tv.
one of the journalists asked why he didn't stress the importance of saving (gas, electricity etc) instead of just talking about the price. Bush answer was that he could stress the importance for people to use less energy, but in the capitalistic system they would only do it to save money. he might be right in this. even if he shouldn't say it out loud. it is only when things gets more expensive that people are really trying to save.

the whole Sunday newspaper (that i didn't get to read until yesterday) was about saving money. possibly reasonable since money is a very serious matter in this country.

higher taxes on gas and electricity would help people to save. the whole system needs to be reconstructed and peoples lives has to be changed. any effort to reach the goal of a sustainable society is good.

austin, tx

have read the books in the bibliography. some more closely than others. they are all dealing with city planning in America in the 20th century. at times it feels like everything is recorded

and thought of. still nothing is done.

gas prices are rising. saw a t-shirt yesterday with the text "beer - now cheaper than gas". everyone is talking about it (well, gas everyday - beer only on weekends :)). on the television morning show you get advice on how to save on gas, groceries, travel and so on. saving money that is. saving energy is dealt with also. although easy to avoid, there are television shows and newspaper articles on green everything. green building, green food, green remodeling.

Bibliography

Robert Brugemann. Sprawl.

Duany, Plater-Zyberk, Speck. Suburban Nation – the Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream.

Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Spiro Kostof. The City Shaped: Urban patterns and Meanings Through History.

Dolores Hayden. A field guide to sprawl.

Ada Louise Huxtable. The Unreal America – Architecture and Illusion.

Peter Katz. the New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community.

Safdie Kohn. The City After the Automobile.

Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour. Learning from las Vegas.


to be revised..