Explore the geometry of Sun City, Phoenix, AZ,
through detailed satellite imagery. To Pan: click and drag the map. Take
advantage of the zoom bar.
The Geometry of Sprawl
September 16, 2010. Source:
The New York Times. by Christoph
Gielen and Geoff Manaugh
Christoph
Gielen, a German-born photographer, has
been documenting hieroglyphic
settlements from a helicopter —
including prisons and suburbs — for the
past five years. His chosen sites are
distinguished by their clarity: they are
boxes, loops, labyrinths and
half-circles, exaggerations of the
desert topography around them.
Looking
at Gielen’s work, it’s tempting to
propose a new branch of the human
sciences: geometric sociology, a study
of nothing but the shapes our inhabited
spaces make. Its research agenda would
ask why these forms, angles and
geometries emerge so consistently, from
prehistoric settlements to the fringes
of exurbia. Are sites like these an
aesthetic pursuit, a mathematical
accident, a calculated bending of
property lines based on glitches in the
local planning code or an emergent
combination of all these factors? Or are
they the expression of something buried
deep in human culture and the
unconscious, something only visible from
high above?
Sun City, Phoenix, Arizona
Sun City is a census-designated place
and unincorporated town in Maricopa
County, Arizona, United States. The
population was 38,309 at the 2000
census. Its adjoining sister city is Sun
City West both of which are retirement
communities often for snowbirds.
Sun City started construction in the
1960s as a Del Webb community on the
site of what was once the ghost town of
Marinette. Del Webb is a group that
constructs retirement communities in the
Sun Belt. Source:
Wikipedia, Sun City, Arizona.
Sun Belt
The Sun Belt or Spanish Belt is a
region of the United States generally
considered to stretch across the South
and Southwest. The main defining feature
of the Sun Belt is its warm-temperate
climate with extended summers and brief,
relatively mild winters. The extreme
southern part of the Sun Belt (South
Florida) has a tropical climate.
The Sun Belt has seen substantial
population growth in recent decades,
fueled by milder winters; a surge in
retiring baby boomers who migrate
domestically; as well as the influx of
immigrants, both legal and illegal.
Source:
Wikipedia, Sun Belt.
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