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A Maze of Twisty Strip Malls, All Alike
Oct. 18th, 2007 02:02 amTonight, I drove out past Dulles airport, because we had some time to kill before meeting my girlfriend's friend who was flying in.
Something about the whole area out there didn't feel right. Strip malls and developments abounded, of course. Just plopped down randomly in places just because. Giant overpasses and confusing messes of roads. And Dulles Town Center, this giant fancy mall, was the same.
Part of it might have been the hour. It was late, and not very many people were around. But part of it was design. The mall was designed not for people, but for crowds. So without the crowds, it felt empty. Pieces of it were designed to remind you of things like old train stations, or temples, or something I guess, but none of it was designed to live in. It was just built as a temple to consumerism, or a castle, surrounded by a moat of steaming asphalt.
It, like the rest of everything else out there, wasn't designed for people. It was designed for cars. Everything is scaled to cars, not humans. I think that's part of it.
And part of it might be it all feels like a rotting mask, because it's not sustainable. I don't mean it in some kind of new-agey sense, I mean it in the literal sense of this can't go on. And what can't go on, won't. But it'll hang on a lot longer than you think it will.
Maybe the desperation was what I felt. THe retail stores, desperately waving their hole card of Christmas, trying to spur people into spending still more money they don't have. All the overpriced stuff we don't need, that marketers spend their days trying to convince us we can't do without. The baby trees and the old fashioned wooden benches scattered amidst parking lots, desperately trying to pretend to be a park...
Or maybe it's none of those. Maybe it's just me being tired, and being elitist or something. Or maybe the overwhelming attempts to make things seem fancy kicked in my latent anarchist feelings.
I don't know. This is why I probably shouldn't blog at 2 in the morning.
Something about the whole area out there didn't feel right. Strip malls and developments abounded, of course. Just plopped down randomly in places just because. Giant overpasses and confusing messes of roads. And Dulles Town Center, this giant fancy mall, was the same.
Part of it might have been the hour. It was late, and not very many people were around. But part of it was design. The mall was designed not for people, but for crowds. So without the crowds, it felt empty. Pieces of it were designed to remind you of things like old train stations, or temples, or something I guess, but none of it was designed to live in. It was just built as a temple to consumerism, or a castle, surrounded by a moat of steaming asphalt.
It, like the rest of everything else out there, wasn't designed for people. It was designed for cars. Everything is scaled to cars, not humans. I think that's part of it.
And part of it might be it all feels like a rotting mask, because it's not sustainable. I don't mean it in some kind of new-agey sense, I mean it in the literal sense of this can't go on. And what can't go on, won't. But it'll hang on a lot longer than you think it will.
Maybe the desperation was what I felt. THe retail stores, desperately waving their hole card of Christmas, trying to spur people into spending still more money they don't have. All the overpriced stuff we don't need, that marketers spend their days trying to convince us we can't do without. The baby trees and the old fashioned wooden benches scattered amidst parking lots, desperately trying to pretend to be a park...
Or maybe it's none of those. Maybe it's just me being tired, and being elitist or something. Or maybe the overwhelming attempts to make things seem fancy kicked in my latent anarchist feelings.
I don't know. This is why I probably shouldn't blog at 2 in the morning.
