Robert Bruegmann
Robert Bruegmann
Robert Bruegmann is an historian of architecture, landscape and the built environment. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, a specialist on the Chicago school, and best known for his research on the architectural firm of Holabird & Root. He is also a commentator on urban sprawl...
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Most people are so sure that strip malls and big-box retail are bad, but what we find ugly today, we may not in the future. Exactly the same criticism was made about fast food joints and service stations 50 years ago. Now, if you have a service station that's over 50 years old, or you have an intact McDonald's, it's so interesting, it's novel, it's quaint. You might not call it beautiful, but you're likely not to call it ugly anymore.
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(In) the industrial cities of 100 years ago ... millions of urban dwellers ... were obliged to endure cramped and unsanitary tenements, traffic and pollution-choked streets and deadly factories. Today, by comparison, most residents of affluent metropolitan areas live in relatively low-density suburbs, areas that are much cleaner, greener and safer than the neighborhoods their great-grandparents inhabited.