Challenging Sprawl Requires Creativity

And you’re probably thinking “Well, duh, Jeff…” Still, this review of Vernon Swaback’s book The Creative Community: Designing for Life argues persuasively (as does the book, apparently) that the byproducts of sprawl, namely a mind-numbing sameness best symbolized by the “big box store,” demonstrates the anti-creative urge embodied in this phenomenon. The writer, Neil Peirce, quotes Swaback as writing “Future power and fortunes will come to those who can demonstrate relationships between privacy and community, between cities and towns, between nations, and ultimately, between humanity and the Earth” — in other words, those who can make the creative jump to seeing/recognizing the links between these elements will profit from acting on those recognitions.