Does a thought still qualify as random if I have it nearly 5 days out of 7?
Most weekdays mornings I pass a billboard for a new version of The Truman Show come to life.
"Return to the Town of Yesterday: from the 100s to the 800s." And too many weekday mornings, I cannot help but think: "if I had been around 'yesterday' with $800,000, I'm pretty sure I could have bought myself a whole freaking town." Sometimes I even picture myself as Nellie Oleson's worse nightmare: a pioneer with real money. (It's a really long drive.)
Today, someone--some developer--with a lot more than $800,000 is building an entire town and selling it off piece by piece. New Urbanism is in some ways an appealing concept--I'd love to spend less time in my car--but I can't help but roll my eyes at people who drive and drive and drive right past Actual Urban Environments in order to go live in a Newly Urban flood-prone bean field, where folks never have to use their cars unless they want to go to work or to eat or to school or the supermaket or to the doctor or the bank or the library or the florist or the daycare or the store or the post office or the non-non-denominational church or the movies or to, heh, the gas station. But, it's a lot cleaner than the real city, if you know what I mean and I think you do. There's even a moat, I mean drainage ditch, I mean "scenic canal."
Choosing to live and work where I do, I know I'm part of the problem, too, but hell, at least I'm not pretending.
Monday, April 16, 2007
The imaginary town of yesterday
Posted by Allison at 8:14 AM
Labels: life, Missouri | Add to Del.icio.us
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2 Comments:
God, that photo's ugly. And what is that thing in the middle? It looks like a war memorial, but usually the town has to have been around a few years and had a few people killed in a war, before they build one of them. The pictures shows lots of houses but nothing else - apparently all the shops will be in one place - why? Spread them around. And is that a road for cars? If so, where are the cycle paths?
Oh well, can't remember when I last used the car (brag, brag). I'll stick to real walkable and bikable urban, not plastic.
cheers, Miriam (avoiding the word gobsmacked!)
I drove (yes, drove!) through there one day. I'm not sure what the pointy phallic thing is. Tribute to vinyl siding, maybe. Yes, the shops are in one spot. On purpose. Someday, there will be TEN THOUSAND homes, so I assume there will be more cutsey shops in other spots. There are no bike paths. Being less than graceful, I'd hesitate to ride my bike on the narrow streets, so crowded are they with parked cars.
They're somewhat more for recreation than transportation at this point, but I do have to give my county credit for their rails-to-trails bikepaths: http://www.mcttrails.org
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