Wendell Berry and the New Urbanism: Agrarian Remedies, Urban Prospects

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2011/03/wendell-berrys-new-urbanism-agrarian-remedies-urban-prospects/

[Marcus Bryant]

The problem of specialization manifests itself in the way we have envisioned our communities. Berry argues that a healthy community, and ultimately a healthy culture, is one in which people live where they work and work where they live.


Nowhere is the destructive influence of the modern home so great as in its remoteness from work. When people do not live where they work, they do not feel the effects of what they do. The people who make wars do not fight them. The people responsible for strip-mining, clear cutting of forests, and other ruinations do not live where their senses will be offended or their homes or livelihoods or lives immediately threatened by the consequences. The people responsible for the various depredations of ‘agribusiness’ do not live on farms. They—like many others of less wealth and power—live in ghettos of their own kind in homes full of ‘conveniences’ which signify that all is well. In an automated kitchen, in a gleaming, odorless bathroom, in year-round air-conditioning, in color TV, in an easy chair, the world is redeemed.

[Marcus Bryant]

Here we encounter an irony: the success of specialization leads to the demise of healthy communities, but the destruction of local communities leaves a cultural vacuum that is filled with a homogeneous culture that is as bland as it is broad. Specialization, then, leads to homogenization, and homogenization leads to boredom, apathy, and a diminished sense care or responsibility.