index

Critiques of places today

click on images for full-size:

Airport scene

Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia

Protecting your suburban investment, Maine

Middleton Hills, Madison, Wisconsin

Unnamed development outside Madison, Wisconsin

Here are a few representative critiques:

The general lines of critique are clear. No matter whether they are aesthetically pleasing are not, contemporary places are thin as opposed to thick; they offer simplified identities to simplified inhabitants. The places are either commodities, spectacles, or machines for a standardized consumerist routine that pales in comparison to thicker modes of living. This superficial life is not our individual fault. It is due to large forces, perhaps global capitalism, perhaps technologies such as the automobile and the media, perhaps modernization as an inevitable loss of roots.