Dr. Andrew Wood Office: HGH 210; phone: (408) 924-5378 Email: wooda@email.sjsu.edu Web: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda

I know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind . . .
Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us
I need to remember this.

- Don Henley, The End of the Innocence

Ideal Community Project is due

The promise of a community shaped and maintained by its shared vision of the future seems to be replaced by fragmented and customized nostalgia as evidenced by an architectural movement called new urbanism. The Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow has been overshadowed by Celebration, a communal attempt to live in the past rather than the future. However, this cross between a garden city and company town conceals much within its planned neighborliness. Finally, we conclude our semester with a discussion over whether community can sustain itself in the new century. The growing privatization and simulation of public locales, the proliferating media that enhance individual pursuits, and the decline in traditional socializing institutions portend, to some critics, the end of public life in America. These critics may be right. However, as we shall see, they may have overlooked the emergence of new technologies and social forces leading to an even more tightly knit community than has ever before existed.

Reading: Hellman, Morris, Putnam, and Miller

Supplemental Reading: Wood

Supplemental Website: Wood's Celebration Photos

Supplemental Notes: Langdon Winner: Silicon Valley mystery house

Viewings: Mulder, Scully, and the Simpsons visit a perfect community

Viewing: Pleasantville: Bowling in the rain

Notes: Philip Morris

Notes: Putnam

Activity: Where is Silicon Valley?

Activity: Time Travel

Off-campus webpages related to Technopolis

Paul Mackun, Silicon Valley and Route 128: Two Faces of the American Technopolis

Scott Rosenburg, Lonesome Internet blues, take 2 - "Another day, another dubious study finds that the Net makes you lonely -- and the press goes nuts."

Off-campus webpages related to Celebration

CNU, Congress for the New Urbanism

Brandy Davis, New Urbanism: Cause for Celebration?

Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, The Second Coming of the American Small Town

Note: These pages exist outside of San Jose State University servers and their content is not endorsed by the page maintainer or any other university entity. These pages have been selected because they may provide some guidance or insight into the issues discussed in class. Because one can never step into the same electronic river twice, the pages may or may not be available when you request them. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Dr. Andrew Wood.