Minor point, but I don't understand why people think white mainstream protestants (ie, WASPS) behave differently in this regard than upper middle class Catholics/Jews/evangelicals, etc.  Non-public schools enroll only a small minority of every group...

 

I honestly don't think that.  I used the term earlier in a bit of a rush because I couldn't think of anything better to call those people and most of them appear to me to be WASPs even if that's not really entirely the case.

 

I should chime in to add that I don't think that anything above applies just to WASPs, either; I was just running with it because it had already been used.  I see the same phenomenon with almost all families of sufficient economic means, though--African-Americans who break into the middle class get out of the inner city neighborhoods with basically the same alacrity that WASP/WASC/Asian/Jewish/etc. middle- and upper-class families do.

Minor point, but I don't understand why people think white mainstream protestants (ie, WASPS) behave differently in this regard than upper middle class Catholics/Jews/evangelicals, etc.  Non-public schools enroll only a small minority of every group...

 

I honestly don't think that.  I used the term earlier in a bit of a rush because I couldn't think of anything better to call those people and most of them appear to me to be WASPs even if that's not really entirely the case.

 

I should chime in to add that I don't think that anything above applies just to WASPs, either; I was just running with it because it had already been used.  I see the same phenomenon with almost all families of sufficient economic means, though--African-Americans who break into the middle class get out of the inner city neighborhoods with basically the same alacrity that WASP/WASC/Asian/Jewish/etc. middle- and upper-class families do.

 

One of the things noticed while Maple Heights was first integrating was that when black middle class families moved in, while the parents for the most part adopted what could be called the suburban ethos, many of their kids, particularly their teenagers, did not. 

 

Teenagers rebel, that's a given.  Pissing off parents is a goal.  Black suburban teenagers sometimes seem to rebel by embracing a stereotypical urban lifefestyle, including inviting their friends who still live there to come hang out in the new neighborhood.  Then there's the issue of the teenage girls.  Boys *will* come around, invited or not, and if she has the taste for lower types, then there's that issue. 

 

True "white flight" follows and during the second wave, black families arrive who are less assimilated to the ethos.  This cause more flight....often including the original black families.

 

I'm not sure anything can be done about this as a matter of public policy, but it's a factor.

Tampa: America’s hottest mess

The GOP convention's host city is a disaster, and a perfect reflection of where Tea Party politics will lead cities

By Will Doig

 

 

Poke around the White House website and you can still find the hopeful “fact sheet” for a 324-mile high-speed rail line linking Miami, Orlando and Tampa.

 

No such system exists, of course — it was killed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Today, there’s a 40-acre vacant lot where the Tampa terminal would have stood. And when Republicans arrive for their national convention in about a week and catch a glimpse of it, they’ll likely see a big win. In fact, the GOP will find a lot of things in Tampa that exemplify their commitment to not investing in the future.

 

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/18/tampa_americas_hottest_mess/

 

 

Tampa may or may not be the "hottest mess" in the country, but I've spent enough time there to agree with that article.  The one thing Doig, and apparently the study he references in the article, overlooked is Ybor City, which is a gem, though currently overrun with trashy clubs and bars.

 

That said, Charlotte is really not much better, so it's hard for the Democrats to make any hay out of Tampa's shortcomings.

Tampa may or may not be the "hottest mess" in the country, but I've spent enough time there to agree with that article.  The one thing Doig, and apparently the study he references in the article, overlooked is Ybor City, which is a gem, though currently overrun with trashy clubs and bars.

 

That said, Charlotte is really not much better, so it's hard for the Democrats to make any hay out of Tampa's shortcomings.

 

I've seen some Democratic friends get all anticipatory about the idea of a hurricane hitting Tampa during the convention.

 

If one believes in karma, one might want to avoid Charlotte during the first week in September.

Charlotte is at least on the right path, though.  The investment in Uptown (Clt's 'downtown') is very encouraging. 

Charlotte is at least on the right path, though.  The investment in Uptown (Clt's 'downtown') is very encouraging. 

They had a pretty good governor for awhile.  I'd have voted for Mike Easley over McCain in a heartbeat.

Tampa may or may not be the "hottest mess" in the country, but I've spent enough time there to agree with that article.  The one thing Doig, and apparently the study he references in the article, overlooked is Ybor City, which is a gem, though currently overrun with trashy clubs and bars.

 

Mentioning Ybor City would have been appropriate, but Ybor City is also not particularly connected to anything.  I was in Tampa not too long ago for the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, which was at the convention center.  There is a streetcar line connecting the convention center area with Ybor City, but that line currently goes through a complete wasteland between the convention center and Ybor City.  I'm not talking about an underdeveloped or lower-income urban area like Weinland Park; I'm talking about long series of high chain-link fences separating the line from vacant lots with industrial facilities in the distance.

 

The convention center area itself also appeared somewhat self-contained.  They had the usual mix of hotels and restaurants, including some nice, upscale, independent ones, that you'll find in most medium-large metros' convention centers.  And, to be fair, I think there were at least a few actual residential condo towers in the area as well, so there may be some population there that wasn't completely transient (assuming that those condos were actually occupied and aren't just snowbird perches).

 

I was only there for a few days and no previous familiarity with the city, so it's possible that I missed some important things.  However, remember, most convention visitors are going to be like that.  First impressions and the ability to rapidly impart information and make sense to an out-of-town visitor is something that convention-center districts in particular should be good at, and that even more mixed districts like Ybor City should be able to do.

Ybor is definitely an island, and mostly geared towards tourists and partiers.  It is pretty extensive however, and it is adding some housing.  If the housing options keep expanding, and a grocery store/neighborhood retail gets added, it can be made into a very nice example of urbanism. 

 

The convention center is what it is, and there is also the Channel District just east of Downtown, which has a fair number of new condos in an old industrial district (nothing like our old brick factories, though) that is anchored by a lifestyle center style outdoor mall that is also the cruise ship terminal.

 

There is also Hyde Park, which is similar to Cleveland Heights, with the retail being contained in a modern lifestyle center.  It's not as bad as that sounds, though, as they integrated the parking with the retail structures pretty nicely.

 

All these areas are pretty well separated, though the Convention Center, Channelside, and Ybor City have the trolley.

Ybor is definitely an island, and mostly geared towards tourists and partiers.  It is pretty extensive however, and it is adding some housing.  If the housing options keep expanding, and a grocery store/neighborhood retail gets added, it can be made into a very nice example of urbanism. 

 

The convention center is what it is, and there is also the Channel District just east of Downtown, which has a fair number of new condos in an old industrial district (nothing like our old brick factories, though) that is anchored by a lifestyle center style outdoor mall that is also the cruise ship terminal.

 

There is also Hyde Park, which is similar to Cleveland Heights, with the retail being contained in a modern lifestyle center.  It's not as bad as that sounds, though, as they integrated the parking with the retail structures pretty nicely.

 

All these areas are pretty well separated, though the Convention Center, Channelside, and Ybor City have the trolley.

 

Child Tampa is a mess!  Downtown Tampa is a joke!  and that trolley (a good portion single track) should have never been built.

Municipalities Examine the Cost of Sprawl

Article | August 30, 2012 - 1:00am | By Geneva Faulkner  

 

Urban planners can often find it difficult to assess the impact of sprawl in their municipalities. Calculating future infrastructure needs and the various fiscal impacts of different land use decisions can be challenging and time consuming. Enter New Hampshire’s new Cost of Sprawl tool (www.costofsprawl.org).

 

 

http://engagingcities.com/article/online-tool-helps-new-hampshire-municipalities-examine-cost-sprawl

Not a shocking number, but it is the first time I've seen a number attached to this......

 

From today's Initiative for a Competitive Inner City summit in Boston........

 

"An inner city business creates 3X more new jobs for inner city residents than the same size businesses elsewhere in the region."

 

https://twitter.com/#!/search/?q=%23icicsummit&src=hash

Not a shocking number, but it is the first time I've seen a number attached to this......

 

From today's Initiative for a Competitive Inner City summit in Boston........

 

"An inner city business creates 3X more new jobs for inner city residents than the same size businesses elsewhere in the region."

 

https://twitter.com/#!/search/?q=%23icicsummit&src=hash

 

This almost falls under "duh", for two reasons:

 

-Transportation.  Jobs in the exurbs simply aren't accessible to many inner city residents when said exurb doesn't have public transportation access or is in a different "zone" (for example, Lake County vs. Cuyahoga County).

 

-The conscious decision to locate there.  If a company is able/inclined to hire inner city residents to begin with, they  are more likely to locate there.

 

Any time a company chooses a location, many factors come into play.  This is why I've been saying for years that you will inevitably reduce residential sprawl if you reduce industrial sprawl, and to do the latter you really want to mitigate or even eliminate the impact of CERCLA.

Do they have a link to a study? I have trouble understanding Tweeter hieroglyphics.

Not a shocking number, but it is the first time I've seen a number attached to this......

 

From today's Initiative for a Competitive Inner City summit in Boston........

 

"An inner city business creates 3X more new jobs for inner city residents than the same size businesses elsewhere in the region."

 

https://twitter.com/#!/search/?q=%23icicsummit&src=hash

 

This almost falls under "duh", for two reasons:

 

 

Yeah this reminds me of another headline I saw this morning but didnt have the patience to read because it was likely going to be another "Duh". 

 

Survey: Adults with low incomes could be at risk health-wise (Medina Gazette says study finds that low-income adults often don't have health insurance.)

 

Sort of like the many studies indicating that blacks are less likely to get approved for a mortgage or are going to pay higher rates.........

[quote author=E Rocc link=topic=7292.msg641558#msg641558

Any time a company chooses a location, many factors come into play.  This is why I've been saying for years that you will inevitably reduce residential sprawl if you reduce industrial sprawl, and to do the latter you really want to mitigate or even eliminate the impact of CERCLA.[/color]

 

Again with this industrial sprawl/CERCLA stuff. Heavy industry located too close to residential/mixed use/commercial areas is not desirable and was one of the main things that destroyed our cities in the first place. Industry can sprawl all it wants. It belongs on the edge with all the warehouses and airports as is done in places with truly functional living arrangements.

 

Here's what I'm getting from this (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

"Nyah, I got a plan that will kill all the progress cities made over the past few years by putting a bunch of heavy industry in urban areas, see? That way people will be forced to go back to sprawling again."

But CERCLA impacts all types of development on old industrial sites, including those seeking to de-industrialize them.  I agree that factories shouldn't be interspersed with houses.  CERCLA has little to do with that though.  It just keeps brownfields brown.

Gotcha. It's the industrial sprawl drum-beating I don't get, I guess.

Well, job sprawl is the big problem really, not just industrial sprawl per se.  There's tons of jobs in retail and offices, workshops, warehousing, etc., that are in sprawl locations, and that's much more difficult to deal with.  Think about it like this, if we only had residential sprawl, and thus all jobs remained in the city center, you could still serve nearly everyone with transit as they're all going downtown to work and shop.  This is basically the pattern of pre-WWII streetcar and railroad suburbs.  If point A is downtown, you only have to connect points B, C, D, E, F, etc. with point A to make it work well. 

 

When you have job sprawl however, you don't have a central residential nexus with businesses around the periphery, you have everything scattered around all over the place.  It's not like everyone lives in point A and works in B, C, D, E, F, etc., some live in A and work in C, some live in D and work in F, some live in E and work in B.  That's so highly distributed that it's next to impossible to serve with transit. 

 

Also, how much industry in the US is actually that much of a nuisance anymore?  Sure there's some businesses that can be noisy or that pollute, but it's not like we're building new steel mills, ore smelters, or leather tanneries.  Many industrial businesses nowadays are difficult to discern from simple office buildings or warehouses.  Most of them close up shop promptly at 5:00 anyway, so who really cares if they're next door? 

Well, job sprawl is the big problem really, not just industrial sprawl per se.  There's tons of jobs in retail and offices, workshops, warehousing, etc., that are in sprawl locations, and that's much more difficult to deal with.  Think about it like this, if we only had residential sprawl, and thus all jobs remained in the city center, you could still serve nearly everyone with transit as they're all going downtown to work and shop.  This is basically the pattern of pre-WWII streetcar and railroad suburbs.  If point A is downtown, you only have to connect points B, C, D, E, F, etc. with point A to make it work well. 

 

When you have job sprawl however, you don't have a central residential nexus with businesses around the periphery, you have everything scattered around all over the place.  It's not like everyone lives in point A and works in B, C, D, E, F, etc., some live in A and work in C, some live in D and work in F, some live in E and work in B.  That's so highly distributed that it's next to impossible to serve with transit. 

 

Also, how much industry in the US is actually that much of a nuisance anymore?  Sure there's some businesses that can be noisy or that pollute, but it's not like we're building new steel mills, ore smelters, or leather tanneries.  Many industrial businesses nowadays are difficult to discern from simple office buildings or warehouses.  Most of them close up shop promptly at 5:00 anyway, so who really cares if they're next door? 

 

Actually, a large number of industrial plants run two or even three shifts.  They also tend to be in industrial park areas due to zoning.  As for pollution, there's regulations in place.  Other scrutiny as well.  I used to work at a secondary aluminum smelter in Maple Heights.  I was even environmental manager (among other titles) for awhile.  Thanks to crappy zoning, we had a residential street (built well after us) on our southern border.  We put warehouses and maintenance shops over there, but were still under tight scrutiny. 

 

Other than that, great points.  There's tons of old industrial sites in the city and inner ring, they already have all the infrastructure including rail access.  Under current law, a decision to locate in one would fall somewhere between questionable and crazy.  Not only stockholders might have something to say, but lenders would as well.  The bill for a mess left long ago by a long defunct company could fall in your lap.  It's "safer" to build in Medina. 

 

Mayors realize this.  At the beginning of the Clinton Administration, someone proposed suing companies for polluting in disproportionately minority areas under civil rights laws.  The term "environmental racism" was tossed around.  The big city mayors' lobby about gave birth to porcupines when they heard this idea.  Breech presentation.  It was dropped *fast*.

 

The problem is still federal.  My idea is that if you locate on a former industrial site in an area with more than 150% of the national unemployment rate, and you get ISO 14000 (environmental responsibility) certification within three years of starting production, you are quite simply exempt from CERCLA liability for preexisting site conditions.

That cleared things up quite a bit for me. Sometimes it's better to explain your position in detail than to keep it short with some of these concepts.

Told ya urbanism is a spiritual thing, just as sprawl has no soul....

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/interview-with-eric-jacobsen.html?paging=off

Historically, in the era from, say, 1880 to 1940, many industries generated their own power by burning coal. Today, they purchase electricity from the big utilities, who usually still generate it by burning coal, but the site is far away from other development and the emissions are at least partly controlled. Moving away from coal smoke was a major reason why people moved to the suburbs. This is mostly not a problem anymore.

 

The one thing that industries are still notorious for is heavy trucks.

Told ya urbanism is a spiritual thing, just as sprawl has no soul....

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/interview-with-eric-jacobsen.html?paging=off

 

Great article. Love the pizza metaphor. I just sent it to a pastor friend of mine who preaches the same ideas.

Historically, in the era from, say, 1880 to 1940, many industries generated their own power by burning coal. Today, they purchase electricity from the big utilities, who usually still generate it by burning coal, but the site is far away from other development and the emissions are at least partly controlled. Moving away from coal smoke was a major reason why people moved to the suburbs. This is mostly not a problem anymore.

 

The one thing that industries are still notorious for is heavy trucks.

 

When you have houses nearby you hear it about noise in general.  Everything from people arriving for work at 6am to lift trucks' backing signals to containers bumping around.

 

We got NIMBYed big time, and while smoke and smells was the most common complaint, that was nowhere close to being the main reason.

When you have houses nearby you hear it about noise in general.  Everything from people arriving for work at 6am to lift trucks' backing signals to containers bumping around.

 

I have all of that here at my condo building in Lakewood!

The thing with noise is that you might miss it when it's gone! I got used to living with constant noise, and then living in the country was very depressing. The noise of animals in the summer helped, but winter was terrible. I prefer lots of noise over no noise.

Told ya urbanism is a spiritual thing, just as sprawl has no soul....

 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/interview-with-eric-jacobsen.html?paging=off

 

I think there is a lot of truth in this. Urban neighborhood churches help hold communities together in a way that sprawl churches cannot duplicate.

Megachurch wants your moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney

 

The thing with noise is that you might miss it when it's gone! I got used to living with constant noise, and then living in the country was very depressing. The noise of animals in the summer helped, but winter was terrible. I prefer lots of noise over no noise.

 

You can have lots of noise anywhere.  In dense areas, you get a lot of noise you can't control.  For example, this morning in Northfield.  The garbage trucks backing up at 6am as Mimi was taking her morning constitutional.

That's the whole point.  It's more interesting when you aren't planning it out.  That's why people still listen to the radio and Shuffle is a popular feature on music players.

That's the whole point.  It's more interesting when you aren't planning it out.  That's why people still listen to the radio and Shuffle is a popular feature on music players.

Unless of course you're trying to sleep.  Or hear something you "planned out".  I suspect other people's noise was one of the biggest driving forces behind "sprawl".

 

Hmm.....does rock and roll even happen without the suburbs?

Of course it does. Most of the good rock and roll initially came from England. The early American stuff was pretty much souped-up big band tunes. Rock and roll didn't get good until the city dwellers got involved and gave it the blues.

 

Sprawl isn't quiet. Sprawl doesn't have garbage trucks, really? There's way too much automobile related noise. School buses mashing the throttles on their diesel engines which sound like they're full of rocks while robotically beeping and barking to everyone within earshot that they are about to move. Teens booming their systems just as loud as in town. Airplanes. Freeway whine. Fire trucks. The cacophony of 80 different lawn care machines banging away at once. '93 Lumninas with no mufflers running on 3 cylinders delivering papers. White trash driving around in overloaded pickups full of stuff like old washing machines and tires.

 

That whole "sprawl is quiet" thing is just something real estate agents said in the '50s and that happened to stick around though the sitcom era.

^ :clap:

After living in downtown Cincy for five years, XUMelanie and I spent a night at my brother's home in the country.  Those birds in the morning are louder than any car, bus, street sweeper or garbage truck.

You guys keep talking about noise, but the thing I can't get over every time I'm back at my parents house in the country is how dark it is at night.  It shocks my system every single time.

Sounds like a new hipster attraction ;-)

 

Suburban Kansas Dream: Museum of Suburbia

Plan for Exhibits on Bowling, Lawn Furniture Inspires Neighborhood Spat; Faux Fence.

 

Museum officials in Johnson County, Kan., propose spending $34 million to create the National Museum of Suburbia, a faux suburb where visitors could wander through a model ranch-style home, wonder at an exhibit of lawn furniture and topple pins on a re-created bowling lane.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443493304578038920747409686.html

Of course it does. Most of the good rock and roll initially came from England. The early American stuff was pretty much souped-up big band tunes. Rock and roll didn't get good until the city dwellers got involved and gave it the blues.

City dwellers like Elvis Presley?

I don't know what "souped up big band tunes" you're talking about, but the blues was there at the birth of rock 'n' roll. Along with country and a few other things. There was no rock 'n' roll in England until until musicians there discovered American bluesmen, both rural and urban, and the rockabilly performers. Are you saying Jerry Lee Lewis and Wanda Jackson were "souped up big band?"

Rock went like this:

 

American Blacks--> American Whites-->  England-->  Suburbs

 

Not perfect... there's a pretty direct link between 1 and 3, but 2 did come before 3.  And 4 was last.  This all happened around the same time suburbs began to blossom, but that's generally not where it happened.

This is sacrilege, but I don't think Elvis' actual sound was all that important to the history of rock and roll. Attitude yes, popularity yes, sound no. He was much more of a country act in scope. You look at lists of musicians' influences and they won't include Elvis in a proportionate amount to his popularity. He was important to rock and roll at that time, but the floodgates of material that were unleashed in the late '60s and afterward easily eclipsed his work. It was like Moore's Law for rock and roll there for a while.

 

Yeah, I will say Jerry Lee Lewis was souped up big band. I don't really know Wanda Jackson all that well. Rock and Roll was all kiddie stuff until The Beatles, The Stones, Clapton's work, Deep Purple, Zeppelin and Sabbath. Even early Beatles is kiddie stuff that doesn't count. The music had to appeal to adults for rock to be legitimized, and it wasn't deep enough to compel adults before the British got involved. Before those bands adults had to stick to blues, R&B, jazz and country for music that had some meat to it.

 

I'd say the first mostly suburban movements were probably somewhere around the L.A. punk and hair rock scenes of the late '70s/early '80s.

I think you need to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or read some books (or even Wikipedia entries) about rock origins. Of course Elvis was country. Rock 'n' roll came from country and blues, and R&B. They all evolved together in the early 50s. The early black and white rock 'n' roll emerged and converged together -- in New Orleans, in Philadelphia, Memphis, Cleveland, Chicago electric blues and, later, in Detroit and LA and other places. There were distinct regional sounds, and there was rural and urban and black and white and it all arose around the same time. There were many musical influences, but big band was not really one of them.

The blues were the blues. Country was country. R&B was R&B. People played those genres before, during and after the early rock explosion and continue to play them today. Just because something influenced something else doesn't mean they really have much in common. The early rock and roll was too poppy for me to take it seriously. If I was an adult then, I'd hate the rock and roll of the time too. It was like the Backstreet Boys compared to the other stuff.

 

Just because the early rock and roll had some of the blues in it doesn't help. It had to become the blues to make it. And it did. I suppose it's because the blues was "too black" for mass consumption. So, the early rock and roll phase and its white performers had to get people used to the sounds (mixed with country to really cool tempers), then these British guys could come in playing something close to the real stuff, again with a white face. Then Hendrix (being black) came in and finished the transition off. In short order.

 

I wasn't alive for any of this of course, but I don't have memories of the time, just ears. The early rock and roll never really went away until the mid '90s or so, so when I was growing up the stuff was everywhere. TV, movies, radio, music in stores and restaurants. I didn't really hear much of anything else until I started buying tapes starting around '89-'90, especially since my parents were older. That's something I think kids born after about 1990 don't understand is that you didn't totally live in your own decade back then because the '50s and '60s just didn't let go of pop culture. They killed disco in 6 weeks but couldn't wipe out the '50s for 40 years! Really, they still haven't totally gone away or else a discussion like this taking place so much later wouldn't be as common as it is.

I hate to get personal on this site, but you clearly don't know the history of rock 'n' roll. Songs like "Rocket 88," recorded by Ike Turner and his band in 1951 and often considered to be the first "rock 'n' roll" song, evolved out of an R&B tradition and was defiantly not "poppy." Early rock 'n' roll was radical and controversial. And it was not created by kids. It came from veteran musicians stretching the limits. And it ROCKED. It was not pop. It was not big band. It was not mainstream.

 

Judging from your comments, you're confusing the pop-infused Brill Building hits and the Phil Spector "Wall of Sound" stuff of the late '50s and early '60s with early rock 'n' roll. But the stuff that grew out of early 50s R&B and mid-50s rockabilly is very very different.

 

The preceding is the facts of early rock 'n' roll. But now I'll venture into my own opinion.

 

I would argue that rock 'n' roll was mainly just a 50s thing, with a few throwbacks that came later, like Springsteen's first couple of R&B-infused albums. The stuff that emerged in the late 60s, like Hendrix, CSN&Y, even the Stones, the Who, etc., was something different from rock 'n' roll -- call it Rock. Very early Stones and very early Beatles were still rock 'n' roll, and then their music evolved into other forms.

That definition seems a little narrow, splitting the Stones into Rock and Rock 'n' Roll.  You could call the Stones five different things if you wanted to, but at some point the categories have diminishing value. 

 

And rock is in no way a function of sprawl.  It just isn't.  A case could be made that progressive rock was.  That was what killed it, people complained it was too suburban in light of punk and disco.  And they had a point, as most of the people making prog were upper class white guys with classical training.  Enter Metallica, and the suburbs had themselves a new genre.  Abracadabra-- back on topic.     

Nice segue.

A big part of why rock and roll was a lifestyle as much as a musical genre was the number of garage bands that never did more than manage a few gigs, if even that.  They were called "garage bands" because that's where they practiced, talented or not.  "Sprawl" put a little distance between them and their neighbors.

 

Lazarus Long (Heinlein viewpoint character) once said that it was the car that killed "traditional" morality.  I'm going to say that it started the process, but it's kid.....the suburbs...finished it.  Big city neighborhoods had busybodies, small rural towns consisted of them.  The busybodies moved to the 'burbs as well, but it was easier to avoid them.

A truly enlightening discussion on "suburban sprawl," guys.  (NOW, what about Bill Haley's Comets and "Rock Around The Clock"?  I gotta know where he fits, heh heh!)

You guys keep talking about noise, but the thing I can't get over every time I'm back at my parents house in the country is how dark it is at night.  It shocks my system every single time.

 

Exactly.  People like to think they're moving to "the country" when they choose the suburbs, when actually they are actively participating in the destruction of "the country."  It's odd to think about, but I think transit actually promotes most of the wants and needs of suburbanites.  Go to the far suburbs of Chicago and you'll find autonomous little towns that are quite tranquil, but have a rail connection to the city for people to meet their shopping needs. 

 

 

Terry Stewart, the president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said that three cities, other than the Hall's home in Cleveland, "can rightfully claim the title of the birthplace of rock and roll: New Orleans, Memphis and Cincinnati."

http://www.thejewishweek.com/arts/arts_guide/other_king_rock_n_roll

 

This is sacrilege, but I don't think Elvis' actual sound was all that important to the history of rock and roll. Attitude yes, popularity yes, sound no.

 

BTW, about 1000% agreement here.  There were likely hundreds of guys in that area who could have been "Elvis".  He's the one Colonel Parker got ahold of.  Take a guy as white as the cover bands radio would play, and re-inject a little attitude.  He was the first manufactured pop star.  More the Monkees than the Beatles.

A big part of why rock and roll was a lifestyle as much as a musical genre was the number of garage bands that never did more than manage a few gigs, if even that.  They were called "garage bands" because that's where they practiced, talented or not.  "Sprawl" put a little distance between them and their neighbors.

 

That didn't really last that long though, in the grand scheme of things. In the '70s and '80s it was easy to find like minded-musicians in the 'burbs since the U.S. was much more of a monoculture at that time (not that the U.S. has ever had a really strong monoculture). It was no problem finding other Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Zeppelin, Alice Cooper and Bowie fans just down the street. But then the genres started splitting up rapidly and by the grunge days finding musical soulmates became much tougher in a small geographic area. Thrash metal guys don't want to play death metal (myself included). Then, video games, 500 channel cable and 'net surfing came to dominate the suburbs rather than vinyl LPs and guitars. These days, sprawl has become dominated by strip mall bars featuring Nickelback and Five Finger Death Punch cover bands full of people who grew up on the '70s and '80s rock but still want to play out -- but have no choice but to play The Blitz playlist circa 2006 live in an old Rite Aid. I oughta know, there's a million of bands full of those kinda guys and they are always trying to get me to join 'em. I just can't do the Nickelback; They get pissed off and call me closed-minded. That's the only sound that passes for mainstream today; obscure is the real mainstream in the internet age.