Urbanists of the world, unite!

This intersection – Walden and Duke in Cheektowaga – is ugly. That’s the theme of this particular Buffalo Rising post.

That’s hard to disagree with. It is ugly. It’s a high-trafficked area that connects the Galleria to the I-90 just to the west. Steel asks “how did we get to this”. The answer is simple – that’s what Cheektowaga needed. The emphasis is on utility rather than beauty.

With nothing left to do I walked back across the barren parking lot and into the adjacent Krispy Kreme to down a few glazed heart stoppers. After the doughnuts slid down my gullet the landscape of pure ugliness that surrounded me really hit home. In my field of vision was a world of grayness beyond gray. The sea of concrete and asphalt supported a thicket of zombie like poles holding any assortment of signs, signals, and tangled wires in a seemingly unordered composition. What color that did exist here (mainly in blaring signage) seemed to be mocked by the overbearing gray.

It’s easy to make that criticism on what appears in the accompanying photos to be an overcast, early winter’s day. Come back on a sunny summer’s day, and that grayness might be somewhat diminished.

With time on my hands I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Of course this portion of our planet, like so many other suburban landscapes, cannot really be described in terms of being a neighborhood. Nor is there really any place to walk, certainly not without grave risk of bodily harm. The roaring 8 lanes of Walden Avenue was enough to keep me from sauntering over to the nearest thing of any interest, that being the Galleria Mall on the other side ( probably equal to 4 city blocks away but, felt more like miles away in the cutting, unblocked wind). The possibility of death was all too real as I attempted to plan my path across this river of steel. I could find no provision for human crossing.

I would have tried the crosswalks, which go from the sidewalk adjacent to Borders/Krispy Kreme, across Walden to the hotel, and then again crossing the driveway to reach the Galleria.

The comment section is equally entertaining. Especially with the anti-sprawl jihadis who occasionally inhabit that sector of Buffalo’s Blogistan.

I believe that the monetary, health, and social costs of sprawl is one of the greatest threats to our country. Perhaps a greater threat than terrorism.

On the rare occasions when BRO delves into suburban criticism, it reads like a grand jury indictment. I don’t quite get how that furthers Buffalo Rising’s mission to boost the city.

Cul-de-sac sprawl exists here (and elsewhere) because there is demand for it, and people buy it. Try to change their minds, sure – but posts like Steel’s aren’t going to accomplish that. Nor will overwrought comparisons to terrorism.

I agree that that part of Cheektowaga isn’t a Norman Rockwell-type streetscape, but it serves its purpose to attract shoppers off the I-90 into that town’s shopping centers and malls to spend their money. Those stores want maximum utility, and they get it because their tax money and jobs help sustain Cheektowaga.

I find, however, that Steel’s post reads a lot like a colonist complaining about the ignorant, primitive savages he comes across on his journey across the wilderness.

The funny thing is, when suburban areas adopt new urbanism, or malls construct “lifestyle centers” that resemble urban main streets and incorporate “beauty” into the utility, the anti-sprawl cadres remain unsatisfied. So, there’s no winning and no point.