Here’s another post previously published on yskira.com.

(All photos © Alex MacLean)

Photographer Alex MacLean has been flying around the United States in his plane for a while now, taking aerial pictures that little have in common with the cold-hearted omniscence of Google Earth. Instead, they provide a beautiful, poetic, and yet compelling view of the ecological risks of suburban sprawl, uncontrolled industrialism, and the scarcity of environment-friendly energy sources. MacLean’s eye selects visually-amazing targets, to which he also attaches a rich statistical documentation to better outline a risky scenario: toxic waste, pollution, global warming, but also housing speculation and social isolation.

The tipically American dream of a suburban home, a two-car garage and a front lawn to be mown on weekends has been a paradygm of social fulfilment since the 1950s, when the society of consumerism was just beginning to emerge as a dream come true. Books like Revolutionary Road (recently adapted into a movie by American Beauty’s englishman Sam Mendes) and the critically appreciated TV series Mad Men have portrayed the human backdrop of the major changes that were starting to affect society, little spycho-cracks opening in the smooth surface of the pastel colored ads that best embody the spirit of that decade. But, just as advertising has seduced the whole western world into buying products and absorbing cultural references, the subsequential booming urbanization has also schooled generations of businessmen and governments, also leading emerging economies to follow the build-and-consume formula.

Dubai’s real estate speculation and China’s incredibly fast urbanization are some of the most blatant examples, while Mexico still is the American dream’s closest victim. But the Las Vegas-inspired emirate is recently suffering a rent drop (just like its western brother has been hardly hit by the crisis) and, despite the sky-rocketing urbanization rate in Far Eastern countries, only an infinitesimal minority can afford to live in the Southern California-style “Offworlds” that urban theorist Mike Davis mentions in his Planet of Slums

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MacLean’s look, despite its elevated point of view, digs deep into the ground-level contraddictions of the American lifestyle: self-segregated suburban communities revolving around cul-de-sacs, infrastructures making multiple cars a mandatory need for families, environmentally hazardous seaside condos, expensive golf fields or swimming pools forced into the desert, and so on.

But the photographer also points out the good things: green roof gardens in Chicago; the SEGS in Dagget, CA, the biggest solar energy complex in the world; the Del Rio, TX dam, providing energy for 15,000 families; the Tehachapi, CA wind turbines, a growing electricity source.

MacLean’s book carries a strong and timely message, right when the housing crisis is turning “McMansion” conglomerates into neo-slums and cities like Flint, Michigan are even thinking about shrinking for a change. The suburban dream turned out to be not so good, and a growing need for human-scale urban space is spreading across the US and the world, both for the people and the environment’s sake. Some people see “slumchitecture” as a virtuous example, but definitely a little more local, context-savvy attention to urban space by planners, architects and city officials would be the best start. In the meantime, Alex MacLean’s pictures are a beautiful chance to help our awareness.