Broadacre influence

Rare high rises make them a lot more special, just sayin’

I wrote about Broadacre City before. I just saw a great comment about it and its place in our future:

In my opinion, reviewing the Broadacre City as social reform for everyone actually has a lot to offer… Surely, Urbanists insist that density solves all carbon-emissions concerns, but as we’re learning, the world is shifting to more of a "work from home" model, for one thing.. More concerning, at least to me, is the overwhelming research and evidence that modern urban lifestyles are producing unhealthy and stressed out people.
Just to discuss health, it’s now abundantly clear that human beings were evolved to be on their feet, moving around, in the sun, in the fresh air, eating foods that come right out of the ground… Surely, Wright saw naturalism as an aesthetic value and a philosophical one (in the realm of Whitman). But his concept, as it pertains to healthy lifestyles, offers a remarkable amount of equity in primary human well-being.
We talk about future communities that offer fresh, local produce and animal proteins, grown conscientiously by small farmers. We talk about places to walk and run and ride bicycles where the air is clean and there is minimal danger. We talk about schools that have healthy air circulation* and places for children to run around in grassy fields. We talk about obesity and how lack of these things produce it. We talk about mental health problems, and how lack of these things produce it. Etc.

A 100 percent.

Urbanists don’t have common sense. Life demonstrates constantly that people have different ways of living and you want to cram them closer and closer to deal with it? Sounds like you’re not listening.

Relationships are terrible these days because people are stressed out by this super intense life, it’s so obvious for people who experienced something else at some point. High urban density (outside extremely homogenous population) is a disaster. They say it’s more efficient in terms of carbon-emission, I’d say it’s making people ultra dependent and more sheepish than ever, which is a good thing for many, many companies. It’s good for business, I get it.

It’s bad for our communities and societies though. And this is where FLW’s city concept is far from being naïve or idealist.

I grew up in the countryside, and then in the suburbs. I lived for ten years in a top 10 denser cities in the world. Now in the infinite suburban Los Angeles, I enjoy everything that I enjoyed previously: quiet field of grass if I want to. Busy skatepark if I want to. Fancy restaurant if I want to. Huge movie theater, a bicycle ride, a car ride, I can do it all and I wish that to everyone. It’s the best. Suburbia is queen.

Now give me a small, FLWish house with radiant heating floors and I’m golden, making bloopidy bloops in my workshop.