Reminder & Remainder of Notes on Chapter 8 in The Geography of Nowhere

Reminder: Paper is due next Tuesday (11/18) and be prepared to give a brief overview of your paper and comment on the photographs you took (10 minutes, maximum). The details of this paper assignment can be found in the Sept. 30th blog post.

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Remainder of notes on Chapter 8

C. Kunstler goes on to describe how Saratoga Springs developed a commercial strip on the way into town (as is evident locally, especially along West Main and Asheville highway leading into downtown Spartanburg).

1. A major reason for all the parking lots and unfriendly pedestrian environment are zoning ordinances which may have been well-intended. (He outlines the relevant zoning ordinances, mid. p. 136)

2. No effort is made to create a coherent vision of what South Broadway (the main drag into Saratoga Springs) should look like. Planners leave design questions to technical experts or traffic engineers who look at things from their narrow self-interest.

3. "The unwillingness to think about the public realm of the street in any other terms besides traffic shows how little value Americans confer on the public realm in general." (p. 138)

D. South Broadway becomes just Broadway as you enter the downtown of Saratoga Springs which has also fallen on hard times design-wise.

1. The old pattern of shops and stores of three to five stories with apartments above ground-floor retail space built up against sidewalks so pedestrians could look in shop windows, has given way to plazas and parking lots.

2. After World War II there was little interest in fixing up the old. We wanted new things. And since gas was plentiful and cheap, why not build with the car in mind? Kunstler also notes that the post-war notion that people should not be allowed to live where their business was, necessarily pushed people into suburbia and contributed significantly to the present crisis of affordable housing.

3. Notes that a lot of new construction had no other purpose but to make a profit. Eg. "The Red Barn building (fast-food joint) has only one function: the sale of cheap food in volume." This is in contrast to older buildings like the United States Hotel which also served as a public place, a social center. (Note his critical comment about a Ramada Inn built on Broadway, see mid p. 143)

E. Then, just outside Saratoga Springs, near the Interstate highway, and actually in the adjacent town of Wilton, went a shopping mall, which also helped drain the downtown (as Westgate Mall did Spartanburg's Main St.).

1. The corporation which built this mall had been guilty of attempting to buy a city counsel election in another city in order to build a mall there.

2. The mall proved a great stroke of fortune for Wilton because of the tax revenues, which allowed Wilton to eliminate residential property taxes altogether. But for how long?

3. Pretty soon another mall was proposed, a larger one. But where would they get the shoppers? Kunstler goes on to note how transitory the mall business tends to be. (see top p. 146)


That brings us to Chapter 9. I may do some more blogging of my notes given that I'd like to be wrapping this book up soon.