My kind of urban sprawl
This post was inspired by a conversation in the movie Cars:
Sally: Forty years ago, that interstate down there didn’t exist.
Lightning McQueen: Really?
Sally: Yeah. Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way.
Lightning McQueen: How do you mean?
Sally: Well, the road didn’t cut through the land like that interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn’t drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.
I’ve probably witnessed countless subdivisions pop up over the years, and I cringe each time I pass those signs advertising new developments along the suburb-countryside border. All benefits of economic growth aside, I’ve always seemed to love the country and I’m saddened to see long-time wilderness or agricultural land eaten up by development.
My Grandma pointed out to me where one major street ended at the edge of her hometown many decades ago when she was a kid. That street has since stretched several more kilometres over old farmland – with houses, apartments, schools, churches, strip-malls, box stores, hospitals, car dealerships, and parking lots in tow, before once again meeting country roads and scenery. I often wonder how quaint and cozy her town must have been before its population exploded, swallowing up the little hamlets and villages in its path.
North American sprawl seems to uproot, re-route, flatten out, bulldoze, and pave over everything in its path, its concrete touch painting the landscape grey and lifeless. (Token city parks and playgrounds don’t count as ‘nature’.)
Now true country-folk, on the other hand, know how to fit themselves into and around existing landscapes. The European village of my childhood was just such a place. A stream wound its carefree way down the wooded mountain on its way to a river in the valley. Chalet-style homes lined roads that accommodated this winding and weaving little stream. I’ll never forget our adventures as we played in the water and followed alongside it on our bikes over hill and dale through the village.
Forget the grid system! When a village incorporates the beautifully random designs of nature the whole place becomes a child’s fantasy playground, and the best part of it is that it stays green and full of life and endless surprises! I can’t tell you how anticlimactic city playgrounds looked to me when we first moved from the country to the suburbs. I know one thing for sure: I won’t raise my kids in the city if I can help it.
