Suburbia

As an emerging topic that I might want to write my junior theme on, I recently watched a very interesting TED talk by a man named James Kuntsler about Suburbia. It mostly discussed the architecture of a majority of suburbs and a general layout of each town. This man really hated the suburbs and really hated the choices we made as humans, and Americans, to build boring, "depressing", and uninteresting buildings that weren't nice to look at. He said that waking up in the morning to find yourself staring at empty space, a roadway, boxy looking buildings (a la 80's) and a huge target that violated the curves in the earth make us as humans depressed and that must change. He made an example of a town with a nice outdoor place to sit, many surrounding shops, and a charming atmosphere as a superior place to be. He believed that that was a place where someone would actually volunteer to go inside and want to hang around in. But if Americans built ugly buildings, where he believes the architects just said "f**k it", this says to the world that we are not a worthwhile or interesting people. He proposed that we turn these disgusting monstrosities into townships with a common square, that people in America would be happier just from being around this positive atmosphere.
I had never thought of any of this before, and it was an interesting perspective and comment that American society creates places that are "not worth caring about," as he says in the talk. I agree with him completely when I have to take long car trips through Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and other states where I hate looking out the window to just find a big, boxy abyss filled with huge Wal-Marts and other enormous stores. It's well worth investing in making America more worth while, but we'll have to wait until we get the money. Bummer...