must we “pave paradise and put up a parking lot” for our drive-thru society? by: heather...
TRANSCRIPT
Must we “pave paradise and put up a parking lot” for our drive-thru society?
By: Heather McDevittEdited for web application by Marty Lamers
What kinds of social forces caused industry to spread far beyond the central city and
alter the face of the emerging suburbs?
The AUTOMOBILE!
In the 1920s, “some city officials blissfully suggested that the automobile would actually decrease traffic congestion” (Jackson 174).
This may have been the case at first, but any decrease in traffic’s congestion was short-lived.
The Auto Inspires a Changing Community —
Business owners and city planners, realizing that “a central location [was] no longer a good one for…business” now had to reconfigure “to serve vehicular rather than pedestrian traffic” (Jackson 174, 258).
The Auto Inspires a Changing Community —
As a result, “downtown sections became hopelessly congested” (Jackson 174).
As industrially based inner cities continued to grow, American authors began to paint a more romantic picture of the lifestyle and the appealing natural settings to be found in outlying suburbs—initiating and later accelerating what would come to be known as
suburban sprawl.
Everywhere you look,
there is increasing evidence that communities must change to accommodate the new “drive-thru” world.