Introduction
Wherever one goes, everything looks more and more the same. All across the world a uniform, homogeneous model of development, inspired by Los Angeles style urban sprawl, consisting of massive freeways, parking lots, shopping malls and large scale master planned communities with golf courses, is being stamped onto the earth's topography.
People flee the cities looking for tranquility, freedom and their dreamhouse for a lower price. Everyone who buys their A, B, C or D model tract home wants to be on the edge of urban sprawl, yet the edge keeps creeping outward. The problems of the city also seep outward into urban sprawl: traffic jams, gridlock, pollution, crime and a lack of natural spaces. As we have seen in recent history, fervent overdevelopment has led to crises, not only financial, but also environmental and social, and some even say psychological. How does this uniform, anonymous architecture - the anonymization of the landscape - affect the culture, and environment of the region onto which it is implanted? Does this uniform method of urban planning lead to alienation? Are we cutting off our own roots?
