“In part, this is a comment on the sheer vastness of the movement pattern of Los Angeles, but more than that it is an acknowledgement that the freeway system in its totality is now a single comprehensible place, a coherent state of mind, a complete way of life, the forth ecology of the Angeleno.” – Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, Reyner Banham
Los
Angeles is a city in USA, where the freeway is one of the significant sign of
the city while streets and boulevards are the tributary to the freeway. The
city's street patterns generally follow a grid plan, with uniform block lengths
and occasional roads that cut across blocks. Major streets are designed to move
large volumes of traffic through many parts of the city, some of it are
extremely long. Drivers in Los Angeles suffer from one of the worst rush hour
periods in the world with an additional 92 hours in traffic each year. (“Los Angeles - Wikipedia,” n.d.)
A settlement in Los Angeles was
called Yang-na, which has been translated as "poison oak place" or "the
valley of smoke". This shows that the air quality in Los Angeles is very
worst and severe. Los Angeles suffers
from air pollution in the form of smog owing to geography and heavy reliance on
automobiles especially old vehicles that driving on freeway. Heavy traffic and
air pollution in this metropolitan area become a norm.
Freeway acts an important element
in the daily life of Angelenos as they spend lots of their time on it. For people
in Los Angeles, freeway is not just a part of transportation, but it also brings
influence to their lifestyle, attitude and perspective. People tend to complain
about everything that happens around them, however they don’t realise that
there is also good side of it.
The private car and public freeway provide great personal freedom
and convenience to the people through democratic urban transportation, where
door-to-door movement is allowed at high speed over very large area compared to
high density public rapid-transit system. Through freeway system, Angelenos
develop watchful tolerance, impeccable lane discipline and willing acquiescence
in this incredibly demanding machine system without any instruction. (Banham, 2009)
Innovation of computerized automatic control system and traffic control technology
make the hectic freeway traffic to be more organised, leading to huge rely and
belief of people on it.
Instead of wasting time on angst due to traffic jam or
pollution, people in Los Angeles are calm and enjoyed themselves on freeway
driving. They even use automobile as art-work and customise the style of it as
a way of life in human ecology. It turns out as unique lifestyle and culture of
society in this city. Compared to Los Angeles, a metropolitan city, Pura-pura
Tanjung Sabtu is a small rural area in Malaysia. There is a huge difference
between lifestyle of community in these two places due to disparity of geography,
development and culture.
Pura-pura Tanjung Sabtu is located within forest and Malay village,
surrounded by a river that passing through Kuala Terengganu. The main
transportation method in this area is thru walking and cycling, as there is
only one narrow road linked among the houses and outside. In contrast, Los
Angeles is full of freeway with four to five lanes and driving car is the main
transportation alternative. Besides, the site is free of air pollution due to
vast of greenery and lack of vehicle, as well as the traffic jam is absent. The
population in the village is very less and the area is lack of development in
term of technology. Low rise houses are located randomly without any special
arrangement, compared systematic high rise building in Los Angeles. Nature
become the major component in their life intead of man-made structure.
Although it seems like the life of people in these two area
are totally different, “freedom” is the common characteristics that found on
both sides. Angelenos have mental freedom as they enjoy spending time on
activities they like and travel freely to anywhere they want to visit on
freeway, ignoring the traffic and pollution norm. Same goes to the community in
Pura-pura Tanjung Sabtu, they are living in a way that they are able to do
anything freely and walking around without restriction, instead of spending
time thinking on slow development of village. Both sides of the people achieve
kind of freedom in their own lifestyle with what they possess by accepting the shortcoming
of their living place.
Banham, R. (2009). Los
Angeles : the architecture of four ecologies (2nd ed.). Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Los Angeles - Wikipedia.
(n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2020, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles#Geography
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