The American way of traffic: Parts 1 and 2

Here you have a shot of what might fairly be called a "worst case scenario" of transport in cities, eh? A telling reminder of how we seem to have managed, without even trying, to get it perfectly wrong. Hannah Arendt spoke in quite another context of "the banality of evil", a phrase which is not entirely inapplicable here. And being banal, makes it all the harder to deal with.

      Also take a look at. . .  
  • Google Earth on Houston
  • Observe Houston traffic
  • Man on the street
  • Contested Streets video
  • Kyoto World Cities program
  • Go to New Mobility Briefs

    • Feeling a bit smug about what you as say a European see here, with the comforting thought that this is only a weird extreme example of a particularly American pathology that need not concern either you or your fair city? Think again. Look around you at some of the big trends that are not in the plans. What you observe here is the end result of a process that is going on in many cities around the world. So think of this not as a distant impossible anomaly, but rather as a sharp warning, a very real threat. Which you may or may not care to accept and deal with.

    Okay then, what exactly is this monstrosity -- in case you have not already figured it out? Just one more normal working day in the industrial section of downtown Houston Texas as seen through the unsparing eye of Alex S. MacLean, an architectural geologist with an impressionist's eye for composition and light, a pilot and a gifted photographer as well. This particular image (thanks Alex, we shall not abuse) appeared in the magazine Geo in 2003 (which you can purchase via www.geomagazine.fr, or email to fbourgoi@prisma-presse.com). Geo, being French, titled this series "Parkings" as you can see, and the jarring sound of that work in English only reinforces the violence of the image. MacLean's books are available through Amazon.com.

    To quote from the introduction to his "Designs On The Land" by James Corner: "What one sees from the air, then, are not merely attractive patterns and forms but great metabolic scaffoldings of material transformation, transmission, production and consumption. The country is an enormous working quarry, an operational network of exchange and mobility. To appreciate the essential character of the American landscape, it is first necessary to understand how its appearance is less an evolving expression than it is an activating agent of American ways of life and other material practices." Hmm. "American ways of life and other material practices". Hmm again.

    It is our intention, with the Alex's permission, to keep this image in front of your eyes here for the next week or so and invite discussion, exactly of what you see here and the thoughts that it inspires.

    A decade ago the Dutch government had an interesting project which tried to open the way for discussions and actions in favor of better, more human, more just cities. They called it "To lose is to choose". Indeed.