Sprawling Places

Preface

Preface This book argues that, contrary to what many detractors believe, today’s society is still creating real human places. Theme parks and suburban sprawl and anonymous functional places such as airports and parking lots are more than nonplaces. To see them aright, we have to measure them in terms of their own new forms of connection rather than against classic hierarchical unities. The book first describes the changes that have set new places apart and altered the context of older places. It offers a general theory about what turns a given area into a social human place, and argues that places today should be evaluated according to criteria of linkage and complexity rather than classical authenticity and centered unity. Complexity brings greater self-awareness of the ways places are multiple and linked, and of how we inhabit them and keep them alive. I disagree with those urban theorists and social analysts who claim that places have become commodities and pale simulacra of what places should be. I defend theme parks and themed places while arguing that they have to be experienced more complexly than they officially want to be. The final two chapters take up suburban sprawl, defending it against many criticisms while agreeing with others. Suburbia is more internally multiple and it is interconnected in more ways than by spatial proximity. So despite the seeming thinness of many suburban places, they are more complex than they appear to be. The book closes by suggesting interventions and changes in policy that could make suburbia more complex, just, and humane. THE BOOK AND THE WEB SITE The book is part of a larger project that also includes a Sprawling Places Web hypertext presentation of the ideas. The Web site offers hundreds of images of places discussed in the book and of many others. It presents the main argument in a complexly linked way and in a variety of styles. preface viii Each version treats some topics in more detail than the other. The site overlaps about a third of the book but also incorporates many narratives, background materials, and self-reflective turns. The book treats its topics in a more linear fashion with many references and footnotes. The Web site is at http://www.dkolb.org/sprawlingplaces. On its pages the list in the left-hand column includes a link to Outlines of Some of the Discussion. Clicking on this reveals links to outlines, and also Links from the Book Version. Clicking on this takes you to a page with links to the topics where this book suggests that the Web site provides useful images or treats something more fully. For instance, the Web site discusses in more detail the creation of real places in virtual spaces. The hypertext Web version and the book exist together as part of a project to compare the experience of writing and reading in the two diverse media. That project is discussed in the essay “Twin Media,” which is linked from http://www.dkolb.org. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project received generous support from the Phillips Endowment at Bates College and made great strides during a welcome sojourn at the School of Architecture at Lund University, Sweden. I thank those who heard and reacted to presentations at the University of Kentucky, Aarhus University (Denmark), the Accademia Danica, the Open University, Lund University, the Sandbjerg Conference (Sønderborg, Denmark), the University of Texas, Texas A&M University, and Bryn Mawr and Bowdoin Colleges. Thanks to Edward Casey for an attentive reading of an early version, to anonymous readers for comments on later versions, to Nancy Gerth for the book’s index, and to Derek Krissoff at the University of Georgia Press for insight and enthusiasm. For helpful discussions, long or short, I thank Mona Ålend, Gregers Algreen-Ussing, Shunjuku Arakawa, Michael Benedikt, Mark Bernstein, David Brent, Joan Claffey, Jane Douglas, Andres Duany, Will Dudley, Joseph Flay, Luis FranciscoRevilla , Rick Furuta, Judy Gammelgård, Madeline Gins, Trish Glazebrook , Diane Greco, Cecilia Häggström, Andrew Hargadon, Martin Jay, Matthias Kärrholm, Stephen Kemper, Ruth Kisch, Harry Kolb, Mary Kolb, Patricia Kolb, Tony Koltz, John Leggett, Marjorie Luesebrink, Ben Macri, Clara Mancini, David McBride, John McCumber, Anthony Meyer, preface ix Lee Miller, Stephen Moore, Dee Mortensen, Stuart Moulthrop, Anne Niemiec, Angelica Nuzzo, Ib Omland, Jonathan Powers, Geoff Pynn, William Richardson, Paul Ricoeur, John Sallis, Gunnar Sandin, Frank Shipman, Simon Buckingham Shum, Lars-Henrik Ståhl, Thomas Tracy, Cheryl Troxel...