Charley in New Town



Once upon a time, the suburbs were going to be utopia.
     Posted By: Paul - Wed Aug 21, 2013
     Category: Domestic | Dreams and Nightmares | Government | Urban Life | Utopias and Dystopias | 1940s | Europe





Comments
Urban planning is a joke. There will always be someone or a group with enough resources to subvert the process.

As a personal anecdote, the city where I grew up in the Central Valley of California was known for the Flame Tokay, a table grape grown in few other places in the world besides its native Italy. It is also in the heart of wine grape country.

I remember that the city had a fifty year plan (This was in the 1970's) that protected the vast vineyards at the city's western and southern edges. East and north of the city was hardscrabble land suitable mainly for cattle and there were very few of those. Gradually the plan was revised as builders and farmers put pressure on the city as land values rose, environmental regulations concerning chemical use near populations spiraled out of control, and housing became more profitable than farming. Today the Flame Tokay is no longer grown in quantity and the name lives on only as the mascot name of one of the local high schools.
Posted by KDP on 08/21/13 at 11:11 AM
@KDP Well Said!
I grew up in a "planned community", Columbia, MD Was built by the Rouse Co. right between D.C. and Baltimore.
The people in charge of naming things planned villages and neighborhoods named after famous writers. The streets and features came from thier works. I lived in the village of Harper's choice, it comprised the neighorhoods of Swansfield,Longfellow and the only neighborhood named not for a writer but one of his works Hobbit's Glen.
I lived in Longfellow, On Hildebrand ct. off of Hesperace drive. Went to Wilde lake to launch my first boat!
Posted by Tyrusguy on 08/21/13 at 08:38 PM
Sorry, That should be Hesperus drive.
Posted by Tyrusguy on 08/21/13 at 08:45 PM
That sounds like the perfect place for your family sweetie.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 08/21/13 at 11:01 PM
Interestingly, it was 4 years AFTER this short was made that the Great Smog of '52 hit London, killing an estimated 4,000 to 12,000 people from December 5th through the 9th.
Posted by tadchem on 08/22/13 at 10:57 AM
Hey, Ty, did any names include Burroughs (Naked Lunch), Kerouac, Ginsburg or Thompson? Or were those names too much for uptight suburbanites?
Posted by KDP on 08/22/13 at 11:22 AM
@ KDP, Nope, No Burroughs, Kerouac, Ginsburg or Thompson. :lol:
Tolkien and Twain (Clemens Crossing) were about as much as they could handle! :coolsmile:

Village – Neighborhoods (in rough order of opening) Wilde Lake – Bryant Woods, Faulkner Ridge, Running Brook, The Birches
Harper's Choice – Longfellow, Swansfield, Hobbit's Glen
Oakland Mills – Thunder Hill, Talbott Springs, Stevens Forest
Long Reach – Phelps Luck, Jeffers Hill, Locust Park, Kendall Ridge
Owen Brown – Dasher Green, Elkhorn, Hopewell
Hickory Ridge – Clemens Crossing, Hawthorn, Clary's Forest
Dorsey's Search – Dorsey Hall, Fairway Hills
Kings Contrivance – Dickinson, Huntington, Macgill's Common
River Hill – Pheasant Ridge, Pointers Run
Town Center – Vantage Point, Banneker, Amesbury, Creighton's Run, and Warfield Triangle


Columbia takes its street names from famous works of art and literature: for example, the neighborhood of Hobbit's Glen takes its street names from the work of J. R. R. Tolkien; Running Brook, from the poetry of Robert Frost; and Clemens Crossing, from the work of Mark Twain. The book Oh, you must live in Columbia! chronicles the artistic, poetic, and historical origins of the street and place names in Columbia

I remember mowing lawns on wood elves way, and green dragon ct.! :lol:
Posted by Tyrusguy on 08/22/13 at 12:11 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.