Heard an excellent piece on IDEAS tonight on the way home. It was all about Urban Sprawl and the Soul.

The speaker (Christopher something) had an excellent analogy to describe urban sprawl and development.

Imagine they started replacing trees and plants with aluminum trees and plastic plants. At first people would just think it's a novel idea that is kind of interesting. Unfortunately soon you would have no real trees left and the ones you DID have would be a quaint rarity.

That's exactly what has happened to urban areas (and not-so-urban areas) in the late 20th/early 21st centuries. If you find something that hasn't been churned out of the cookie-cutter of urban sprawl development, it's an amazingly quaint little town or area of town.

He then goes on to describe how this disconnect to the land and the natural way in which a town should develop has led to people not being able to fully experience and enjoy life. Very interesting listen.