revolt

about the manipulation and selling of a false dream buy shopping centers like, the summit (Bham, AL) and Ashely park (Newnan, GA)!

now a short story:

last week (Tuesday & Wednesday), i traveled to Atlanta, driving a van full of undergraduate students among four other vans - quite the caravan - for a overnight filed trip for a landscape construction class. and my qualm is not with the trip, or the people, or the the incredibly excessive amount of driving, but more with the last sight we visited.

the destination: Ashley park, in Newnan GA. this place is a monstrosity of a shopping center. its massive. and IF i ever wanted to go shop (which i don't and never will) i would want to go to Ashely park ... or so that's what the developers want me to think. this place is ridiculous. there are water features and water "fountains" to serve as miniature rivers to white water raft. there are sitting areas, there is such a degree of detail work, that for those people who like to shop, this place would be like a dose of cocaine ...

so we are walking, touring this place, looking at the design and lay of the landscape - which is pretty awesome - but then the guy walking us around said something ...

"live Ashely park"

and this made me want to throw up a little in my mouth ... the idea of a commercial developer wanting me to live Ashley park ... makes me sick, and makes me want to revolt against these superficial, worthless selling points of American culture. there is a massive degree of manipulation, sly tactics to make consumers want to go there just to hang out. for those of you in Bham, this place is the summit on steroids.

i hate this kinda stuff so much is b/c the idea of me (the consumer) living the style of life that a shopping center sells to me, is several things 1) the empty dream of American culture and society, and 2) the very mindset and greed or desire for more that has found us (as a country) in the economic crisis we are in!

this place is selling a worthless, empty, and hollow dream of shopping to satisfy and satiate appetites for more and more materials, which our culture and society has so fully and dangerously embraced as the purpose of our existence!

i will leave it as that