An Introduction (finally!)

I had trouble writing my intro, so I decided to write and plan my body paragraphs first. Here it is. Any problems I had with it, I wrote in brackets. Help please?



According to Building Suburbia, between 1994 and 2002, real estate developers created about 1.5 million housing units in planned communities per year (Hayden 3). These suburbs, however, are hardly a recent phenomenon. For almost two hundred years, Americans have sprawled into the outskirts of cities, idealizing the suburbs and planned communities with their spacious houses and generous yards. Although some criticize the homogeneity and poor land use of these communities, the majority of America does not heed this particular criticism because more people live in the suburbs than rural and urban areas combined (Hayden xi). [Trans into thesis] Planned communities have become the American Ideal because of safety and because they embody [different adjective?] the American Dream. [too much repetition?]

Tentative Thesis

Planned Communities have become the American Ideal because of Predictability, Safety, and ensure the pursuit of the American Dream.


What do you think?
With these issues, I will address isolation within communities (I'll possibly address gated communities), as well as safety. Even with this isolation, I can make references to the social issues behind these communities, as most did not allow Minorities at the time of construction. In terms of the American dream, I'll address the created myth of how every citizen wants a house of their own with a yard to bring up children. I can also bring up gender roles, and how some communities were built and specifically designed to have men work and have women domesticated.
Are there any problems with this that I should address? Thanks for your help.

Steroids for my Thesis?

Mentioned in the previous post, I could not decide on a tentative thesis for my junior theme. I'm doing my paper on planned communities, and after reading up on what is considered to be the first planned community, Levittown, I finally found some articles describing the social issues behind these Utopias. After reading a page on the University of Chicago's website, I noticed that Levittown's initial contract and signing agreement ensured that no "races other than Caucasian" were allowed to live there. Mentioned in the earlier post, I'm one step closer to bringing these social issues out in my junior theme, but I still can't prove that all people in these communities believe in this contract or are racists. Hmmm (I'm terrible, I know, but I still think the silent issues and "secret messages" of race and race barriers today are really interesting.) Maybe I should limit my thesis to the people who created these super-towns?
I'm not sure, but I received my main book in the mail today: "Building Suburbia" by Dolores Hayden, and it follows suburbia and planned communities from the 1800s to today, and it is mainly about the social issues surrounding this movement of "new urbanism". I hope this will provide a basis for my paper and my thesis so I can make up my mind! Until then, I'll be struggling to uncover info.

Disturbia

So my Junior theme topic is suburbia, mostly planned communities, and the social issues surrounding it, but I've had a really tough time coming up with a thesis. I'd really like to address isolation, race, and safety, but I can't prove that everyone who lives in planned community is a racist or an isolationist, nor would I want to label them as this. However, I do know that a lot of planned communities were built for isolation of mainstream culture and safety, but I can't prove that the people in it to this day follow or support these issues. What's really frusturating is that I can't come up with a thesis so I can start my paper. I guess what I'm saying is that I need to narrow my thesis to the builders of these communities, find proof that everyone living in these communuties is crazy, or change my thesis completely. Help?

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...