greetings from Grundy, pt. 4

 

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Joe Reifer commented about the first Grundy entry:

My gut reaction was that this is a pretty insane man vs. nature shot. But then I realized the semantics are wrong. Obviously the game is over and it's a man defeated nature shot.

and TJ Avery also pointed out:

Here in flat, featureless Houston, the common method of building anything is usually to reduce the land to nothing but dirt first. Our neighborhood was built just that way. The result is that everything existing now (houses, trees, shrubs, green spaces (what few there are), and streets) are 100% man-made or placed by man in a desired fashion (i.e. per some design).

...You could argue that the clean, orderly appearance of such HOA (home owner's association) governed neighborhoods is beautiful. Why else would so many want to live there? But it's all fake. Not one bit of it was shaped by nature in a natural way.

There is plenty of evidence of nature being literally blasted into submission, especially in the latest addition to my "Continued Exploration" gallery. But most of our suburban and urban landscapes have no natural element left to them - that haven't been managed and rearranged by humans.

I think we look at landscapes like these in Grundy and are in awe of the manipulation because the human presence is still so fundamentally tenuous. With a density of only 54 people / square mile, there aren't too many of them physically present. But their works of destruction certainly are. On the other hand, go to any city and we accept the fact that the natural world has been subjugated to such a degree that it's not anywhere in our consciousness. The masses of concrete, steel, and humanity completely overpower the environment in which they stand, whereas we can still see perfectly clearly the environment in which a place like Grundy stands.

Which is the more "truthfu"l environment? (Is there any point in such a question?) Grundy seems much more a work in progress than somewhere like New York, Houston, or Los Angeles. In which case it probably stands a better chance of being "saved" from it's own "progress."