Regards,
Mike B)
Wojtek wrote:
[WS:] Was it not a way the ruling classes wanted to deal with the growing "threat" of labor militancy - through geographical dispersed housing projects? If memory serves, Le Corbusier even designed one, and Nixon claimed that suburbanization of America will finish off communism. He was certainly right.
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Point of information: NEWS FROM NOWHERE, from which, the quoted piece which followed my observation was taken, is not about creating suburbia within a capitalist system. It's about what can be done when the associated producers socially own the means to produce for use and need. It's about a communist system. Granted, it is a piece of speculative fiction. And to be clear, I'm not advocating the creation of suburbia as a way of getting to a communist society.
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(WS)I think that American suburbia are probably one of the most sterile, aesthetically uninspiring and alienating landscapes ever created, perhaps on a par with Soviet-style housing projects. However, the deciding factor in people's attitudes toward this form of settlement is not efficiency, functionality or aesthetic but "hard-wired" cognitive perceptions of space Those who are hard wired for open, scarcely populated spaces will feel miserable in the most functional and efficient urban setting; while those hard wired for closed densely populated spaces will always be miserable in the country side, even if they lived in mansions. These preferences are like claustrophobia or agoraphobia - they cannot be rationally debated.
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Agreed about suburbia and the crappy utlitarianism of Soviet style housing projects.
**************** Personally, I feel miserable in open, sparsely populated places. This is true not just about human settlements but natural landscape as well - I feel better in a dense forest than on an open plain - which is probably an agoraphobic tendency. So obviously, I am biased against suburban and rural settlements. But having acknowledged my bias, I have a simple question that can be answered in a matter of fact manner. How can they fit 6+ billion people in a landscape modeled on the US suburbia? Or is it going to be "fenced in open spaces" for the selected few, while the riff raff will be keep at bay by gunboats and fenced borders?
Wojtek
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The latter under capitalism. As I assume that a society under the control of an association of producers will be rational enough to plan production so that we can live "in harmony with the Earth", I would speculate that such a society would come to endorse population goals which would enhance living in harmony with Nature. The complete transition out of the mess which the wages system has left us will take some time to accomplish. Birth control will be part of that democratically planned transition, IMO.
Best,
Mike B)
Read "Penguins in Bondage": http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/
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