Miles of pavement and concrete
Roads that go everywhere and yet nowhere
Rivers re-built with concrete banks and bottoms
For as far as the eye can see
Bordered by distant mountains, too steep and expensive to develop – for today anyways
Beneath a blanket of man fouled air not healthy enough to breathe
And nary a remnant of nature
Just a long straight row of man forced trees penetrating from below a narrow patch of ornamental grass
So much capitol invested over a few hundred years
Toil and sweat
Craft and creation
Lovingly constructed
Heat, beat and treat
Man and machine
Cunning and deceit
Greed and philanthrophy
Investment and leveraging
Profit and gain
Loss and bankruptcy
So many rich
So many more poor
Exploitation and consumption
So many resources used making so many things
Freeways and cars
Bridges and parking lots
Transportaion on land, sea and sky
Fast or slow
Highrise towers that reach to the clouds
Houses that sprawl to the horizon
Institutions and industry
Entertainment and sport
Communication and distribution
Local and global
Markets and networks
Pride in our independence
Pride in our growing dependency
Too big to fail?
Too big to change direction?
Too big to fix?
Written in a quiet moment of decompression during a recent trip to Disneyland and Los Angeles, California. The daunting task of making a better world seems impossible at a city scale as vast as LA. Or is it?