| Description |
The urban landscape in the Salt Lake valley has been tremendously altered due to the growth and development of industry. The past has shown that when there are natural resources in the land, they will determine the built environment and its future. All major cities in the United States have been formed in and around areas of natural resources and undergo further transformation by industry. Los Angeles is a powerful example of an urban landscape that has been formed by and continues to evolve around the ideas of natural resources, industry, and the automobile. With industrial growth, the city of Los Angeles has grown rapidly and has developed many outer urban centers within a 60 mile radius. Suburban sprawl, along with industry, has replaced areas of open space and farming, and forced agricultural areas to relocate great distances outside of the urban developments of the city. To understand the present day urban landscape, we must first understand the origination and cycles of change in the American industrial cities. Early industrial cities were formed in the 1800's as centers of trade, serving a largely rural population. During the mid to late nineteenth century, large scale industrialization took hold due to railroads, electricity, the telephone, and other emerging technologies. City areas grew much more rapidly with widespread automobile ownership and the development of large federally funded highway systems. This allowed industrial, blue collar workers, to move farther from their centrally located factories and offices. |
