September 21, 2013

Tysons-aerial-w-sheraton

Earlier this month, Land of Excess made the happy purchase of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Andrew Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck.   You may have heard of the first two’s work as architects and especially their Seaside, Florida and Kentlands, MD developments.  We really need not do any more writing at Land of Excess, we could just quote this book forever.  In the chapter titled “Private Realm Versus Public Realm” we get this swell nugget: “The American private realm is simply a superior product. [They are referring to the insides of houses, especially in a quantitative sense, and we might quibble with this in the qualitative sense, but anyway...] The problem is that most suburban residents, the minute they leave this refuge, are confronted by a tawdry and stressful environment.  They enter their cars and embark on a journey of banality and hostility that lasts until they arrive at the interior of their next destination.”  We present this picture of one of our visions of suburban hell, Tysons Corner, VA.