Building the Suburban Dream
Published February 24th, 2006 in Obligations, Treasure Tags: History, Links, screeds, Squalor.
I know I’m a bad person for hijacking outlander content for a post. But this week has set an all-time record for being from hell, and, well, since it’s tax season and all, perhaps we could all use a little break.
Two links have been going around recently, both concerning the grandaddy of all planned communities. Both sites offer detailed documentation and analysis:
Levittown: Building the Suburban Dream
Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb
I myself first learned of this glorious slice of postwar history many years ago, from a book called Yesterday’s Tomorrows : Past Visions of the American Future.
We’ve got a dilly of a planned community north of Phoenix, called — unfortunately enough — Anthem. It goes without saying that it’s sterile, isolated, destructive of the desert, unable to support itself economically and above all, reeking of dystopic population control. But it also apparently got a pass on having to pony up tax dollars for infrastructure. As huge as it is (and growing; oh yes), it’s serviced only by the same four lane highway that the rest of us have to use.
Consequently, we’re seeing reports in the news about folks leaving for work Monday on Sunday night and staying in town all week. There’s just no way to get the commuter traffic through. Though the various municipalities involved are scrambling to find money to fix the problem, at this point there is no plan to widen the freeway for NINE YEARS.
Somebody check me on this one — it can’t be right!
Where is the I 17 that Wikipedia mentions?
The Levittown link is insane, LOTS of good info.
The I 17 shoots out of out Phoenix, travelling north past Anthem, east of Prescott, Cottonwood, Jerome and Sedona, west of Camp Verde and Lake Montezuma, heading smack into Flastaff.
After flyfishing in Sedona/Oak Creek Canyon with my brother in 2004, we headed back to Tucson on I-17 on Thanksgiving Eve. It took us 4 hours bumper to bumper to travel the 100 miles to Phoenix, along with untold thousands heading for Sky Harbor.
As we crawled past Anthem we had plenty of time to speculate on the effects of such farflung suburbia on the inadequate infrastructure of the I-17 corridor.
If the Palo Verde nuclear plant ever melts down Phoenix could make the evacuation of Houston for Katrina look well planned and orderly.
Of course, any holiday is bad when in the freeway vicinity of the Big P. But any more, every Friday night and Monday morning is a holiday! Whee!
Given the ever-ominious nature of our dwindling annual rainfall, perhaps more and more people will die of thirst, thus relieving the pressure on the remaining Anthemite commutors. Or not.
they could widen the freeway to ten lanes and it won’t make a difference; the road will fill up. have they ever heard of trains out there in arizona? ray bradbury calls for monorails in l.a.
Actually, they’re running a light rail straight through the downtown, all the way to the university and beyond. It’s a marvellous sight — the entire area is completely torn up. I suppose a train out to Anthem can’t be far off.