JB Jackson Sun Belt City notes PDF

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Summary

Reading assignment notes for Dr Prout's GEOG 305 class for section 3....

Description

 Sunbelt City JBJ  Enormous growth of cities has transformed once rural areas into shopping centers or suburb neighborhoods 

Along with expansion of small towns into large ones

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Areas where growth hasn’t occurred have started to decay

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Boundaries and spaces have stayed the same, but their meaning has changed

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Landscapes evolve based on relationships, social interdependence, and in response to the environment 

Certain landscape values are deserted to pursue ones that build up power and wealth and relationships

 Evolution of the road in the south represents this change 

Caters to a population always on the move

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Post civil war deforestation of southern landscapes all the way to east Texas produced a web of roads into the back country that allowed people living in once isolated towns travel into cities and get jobs and earn wages

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The expansion fo the cotton industry west of the Mississippi also gave rse to new road networks

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Traveling peddlers, salesmen, preachers, tent shows, cattle drivers going to market and workers in search of jobs traveled these new networks

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Farm to market roads and roads for tourists were built

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Mobility provides work, pleasure, and adventure to the south

 The Sunbelt City: spacious, fragmented, and diverse in origin 

Roads are being transformed by the implementation of new traffic structures that can make or break businesses and neighborhoods

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Cities with increasingly modernized buildings and high end shops in main plazas with suburbs on the outskirts that have a uniformity to them

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Occasional intersections with a collection of small stores like supermarkets, beauty parlors, gas station

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Churches scattered throughout the area

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Poorer areas with modest homes in old rural landscapes with vegetable gardens and chickens, abandoned cars and heaps of tires in the front yards

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Traditionally protestant sect churches (Baptist, Methodist, or presbyterian) 

Churches provide social ability and a sense of community for the people who have left their familiar environment and give the people the opportunity to participate their religion physically and emotionally

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Acts as a focal point in communities

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Only a small number of people work downtown or visit there

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Strips contain retail stores and fast-food places and discounted houses and movies

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It is becoming “nonhuman” in nature and doesn’t successfully unify its people

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City dwellers are increasingly becoming detached from nature

 Sensory experiences are a huge part of experiencing any city 

Automobility 

Connects people to other environments and allows us to experience different places

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Each community and city has different automobility and patterns

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It is a shared sensory experience

Sound 

Constitutes part of a landscape

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Can make us homesick

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PA systems, jukeboxes, radios, accents, familiar songs and voices

Smell 

Considered the strongest sensory experience

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Revives the past

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Foods, plants, times of year, construction

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Seem private and inexpressible but are still shared...