People ask me why is sprawl harmful to the environment. Among other reasons, my first response is that why build on greenfields when you have so many abandoned sites waiting to be developed back to their glory days. As technology developed and industrialization changed dramatically, erstwhile bustling industrial sites fell into decay. Many of those sites still exist and can be a delight to a photographer albeit in a graphic sense.
Feast your eyes on several such abandoned sites. Never was desolation and abandonment pictured so beautifully. All that is left to be done is to clean up the sites and redevelop them to satiate our need for more urban development. Of course, green spaces sprinkled liberally would do just as well.
July 11, 2006
Ug, I was just talking about this the other day. Everyone claims market conditions necessitate sprawl, yet I keep driving through Texas cities that are all suburb with empty, unused city centers. Nearly every town seems to have abandoned sites like those pictured on invisible threads. My boyfriend is really into urban exploration, and he sees the same power plants, hotels, office buildings, and warehouses over and over again.
July 11, 2006
Gald to hear that, Shannon. Sprawl in my opinion is not just caused by market forces but government policy is largely to blame as well.
Why people want to develop greenfield sites when there is lots of potential with such brownfield sites is beyond me.