P
Patrick
Guest
I just returned from San Diego. Sure, it was nice weather out there, but thats it. The northeast, weather and all, has by far the most urbanized (in the truest sense of the word) and sophisticated cities I have seen in any corner of the country (have not been to the northwest, and for me that means san fran and up). Flying over atlanta I was very impressed. lots of lights. way more than boston. or so i thought. But the closer you get, the more you realize that most of the lights you see are not attached to buildings of any significance. it looked upon further investigation to be a city of wharehouses and one-story gas stations, with a very dense downtown of skyscrapers jutting out of a sea of street lights. What a terrible way to live. Perhaps every city i flew over on my way out west was the same way. pheonix on the way home was as bad if not worse. rows after rows of suburban housing in the middle of the desert followed by an odd looking downtown with no connection to anything it seemed. you can tell a lot about a place from the air. These southern and wesatern cities have gone mad. they are the so called "elastic" cities that capture most of their suburban growth by expanding (like anchorage) to encapsulate the whole county or nearly that much, thereby making so-called wiser planning decisions as a result of a more unified approach, but in my opinion, they are examples of planning gone wrong. do people know what im getting at or am i making no sense? the cities in the northeast are so much more urban than those elsewhere it feels. even my own very small portland, maine seemed in many respects more urban than san diego, with its 70 miles of beach, 80 miles of gas stations and paint stores, 90 miles of half occupied condo high rises, and 100 miles of motels. what has "urban america" come to? Boston, new york, hartford, portland, even a place like portsmouth, they all have it made in terms of being true cities (though obviously in very different ways, given size differentials). the west represents something different, i dont know that one can accurately call san diego or pheonix or atlanta cities...more like seas of neighborhoods fronted by really tall buildings parading around as acting city fronts......too late, hope you guys know what i mean. man am i glad to be back home. for one of the most rural states, even maine beats a south west city!
)