In 1980 I presented the APCG Presidential address in Reno. It was entitled “Stripping the Urban Landscape.” I reviewed the changes of West 11th Ave. Eugene, Oregon from 1892 to1979
In 1979, I had asked the question–“What does this urban landscape represent?.” Like many commercial strips, West 11th communicated a strictly automobile oriented part of the city through 1.) a series of separate, plain buildings in which took place single-purpose transactions; 2.) a continuous paved area on which cars can be driven and parked; and 3.) signage that either identified and located the sellers of goods and services or simply guided cars along the street and into parking areas. In other words the strip was focused on the barest essentials of economic consumption or exchange in which autos are the principal facilitators. My conclusions emphasized that we largely ignored nature in creating a simple landscape that almost exclusively reflected our focus on consumption. The urban strip is an ecologically impoverished landscape that is not diverse, complex, interdependent, stable, or low in entropy. It caters exclusively as an artificial economic world.
Recently, I went back and reread the talk, wondering how both West 11th Avenue in Eugene and my thinking had changed in the 39 years since I had first examined it.
The addition of five large Big Box stores: Fred Meyers, Home Depot, and Lowes, at the site of an abandoned drive-in theatre, and Target, and a Wal-Mart Superstore on the two remaining large vacant lots near the end of the area zoned commercial.
A rapid-transit bus route along the two and a half mile length of the West 11th Strip was built to serve the strip. In doing so the Lane Transit District had to remake much of the road by building or renewing most of the sidewalks while also creating some exclusive bus lanes and turn-offs. (In 1980 several segments of the Strip had no sidewalks.) As it was 40 years ago, West 11th remains almost exclusively an experience associated with automobiles. (In driving down the three mile long Strip on a sunny Friday morning in September, I counted only 5 pedestrians using the sidewalks and 1 bicyclist. No bike lanes exist on the Strip although bikes are permitted to use the sidewalks.)
Development of the Reno Strip
Because we are in Reno, I decided to map the changes in the urban strip of South Virginia Street –most of 6 miles as compared to the 3 miles of West 11th. In 1950 both cities were about 35,000; in 1980 about 100,000: but in 2018 Reno has about 250,000 and Eugene only 170,000 (Metropolitan Areas 2017= Reno 465,000; Eugene 375,000. As in Eugene, the major urban strip in Reno has grown extensively in the last 40 years.
So what do I think about the meaning of the urban strip after revisiting West 11th Avenue and driving down South Virginia Street? With increased demands for consumption of goods and services, the stores and offices of these two strips have become bigger and more easily accessible. However urban strips largely lack positive, direct sensual human experiences except within air-conditioned buildings. Their original, natural ecological settings have become overwhelmed. Since 1980, urban landscapes and their users have consumed evermore energy and materials. We little concern ourselves with the sensual experience of urban landscapes, but instead think of how land may be better used to satisfy our wants, little caring about other landscapes and the resources that have been extracted, consumed, and disposed of to satisfy our demand for goods and services. Urban strips epitomize this innate expression of our culture.
I think this cultural expression bodes poorly for the future of civilization because homo sapiens, individually, like all organisms at all scales, want to reproduce and to maintain themselves better. But the natural environment upon which they depend ultimately will place limits on their growth. Since they discovered how to harness fossil fuel energy, humans, collectively, have been so successful in making their material lives better that they have already reached some limits of the natural environment of which they are a part.
What does the future hold?