Geographical literacy

[bbennett at joymail.com]

--- Christian wrote: 
> Frankfort, obviously.  What is this thing that all former colonies  
> the United Kingdom have for capitals?  They never seem ready to 
> accept using an exisiting city for their capital - instead they 
> construct an all new city; preferably in the middle of nowhere, and 
> it ends up being populated exclusively by politicians, lobbyists, 
> journalists, generals and other bums.  Not to forget an unusually 
> snotty police-service!

Keep in mind that the US is a baby compared to the rest of the world; 
in many cases, we didn't *have* existing cities to use as capitals. 
And while some cities are almost exclusively politician-oriented (DC 
has never been industrial - it did develop as a political town), I 
can assure you that not all of our capital cities are about lobbyists 
and bums.

An interesting thing to consider about the US is that much of our 
recent development (since around WWII) has been based around the 
automobile - suburbs were actually created both to sell large tracts 
of land and to get people to purchase cars ("Get away from the city 
rif-raff and move to the suburbs! Accessable only with the new and 
exclusive automobile!"). Also, a lot of modern architecture (not just 
in the US, but through out the world) came into vogue around this 
time, and while it was touted as visually new and different, it's 
real draw has been that it's cheap to construct. It's interesting to 
note that while this has resulted in some of our cities being poorly 
designed and constructed, many of the places that drove people to 
America in the first place retain more livable communities (i.e. a 
few wealthy landowners retain most of the land, which limits sprawl, 
towns and cities have stayed walkable; older buildings still in use; 
mixed zoning allows one to live/work/shop in the same area, etc). 

This country has a *lot* of things to recommend it, but some of 
our "places" need to be re-thought. I highly recommend The Geography 
of Nowhere - it's a fascinating book that talks about the development 
of the US compared it to other countries. 

B (did I mention I'm a Geographer? :*)