I was looking for info on the Dalai Lama, so that was the first guest I saw. It was a good interview, something I want to check out again. I also took a peak at an episode with a woman named Natalie Angier. She's a science journalist and I found her segment interesting (she expressed the nobility of cockroaches), but what I found more interesting was the first segment where journalist Ed Klein gave some background info on the Bronfman Dynasty.
This is news to me. I think I heard folk address this domination by one family in the entertainment business, but I never caught the name. I'm sure that Robin Williams made some passing jokes addressing this during one of his rapid-fire shower of jokes.
The journalist referred to the Rust Belt. I wasn't sure what he said. I thought , initially that he said "Russ," but after doing a search, I found out that he was referring to a part of the Midwest that is known for manufacturing.
I find the term amusing. More formally, it is called the Manufacturing Belt, but I like the term "Rust Belt." The connection is obvious and very descriptive. I always wonder who are the people that come up with these terms. When I saw that the Rust Belt includes Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Detroit, I thought, "But of course!" Not in those words, but with that feeling.
Here's a more detailed map of this region of the Midwest. Steel Town and the Motor City. That covers a big part of the area, but it covers more than that. Basically, it's a "heavily industrial" manufacturing center of the U.S.
I remember visiting my brother when he lived in Buffalo. And while on a road trip, I stopped by a small industrial town in southern Indiana along the Ohio River (Tell City). Yikes. I would not want to live in either of these places, or anywhere in this region for that matter. Too industrial for me.
In that Indiana town the people looked odd, as if they were dull-headed and even inbred. This is no insult; just an observation. I was not comfortable there. I felt for these folk. There was a huge industrial plant of some sort that was the lifeblood of this town. It was along the river, so you know there was dumping going on. It looked like everyone was poisoned by it. It was depressing to be there. There was an underlying feeling of terror while I was there. I felt for these people. I felt like everyone there was a victim to industry and the socio-economic conditions of this nation. Spooky stuff.
So that was in the Rust Belt.
While looking up info on the Rust Belt, the term Boswash came up. The Rust Belt was described as being west of Boswash. What's this? Hokey sounding term. It is the more common name for the northeast megalopolis that includes Boston, New York City, and Washington D.C. and other neighboring cities.
So that's what they're referring to when they say megalopolis. I always thought of it as some mythic city that was unfathomably immense, but a French geographer (Jean Gottmann) wrote a book describing this area. He titled the book and the area "Megalopolis." So the term was coined specifically for this part of the U.S.
Much better than Boswash or any of its derivatives.
While reading about the Megalopolis, I came across a link to Levittown. Here's another very interesting bit of United States history that I knew little about.
I was vaguely aware of the postwar housing boom mainly because of its connection to baby boomers, which is why I didn't look into it much further; they get enough attention as it is. What I didn't know was that one family pretty much single-handedly put up all those houses in the northeast: the Levitts.
It's a very curious read. I'd like to read the book by Herbert Gans, "The Levittowners." Just skimming the article, I get the impression that this was the beginning of urban sprawl. This is the connection with the megalopolis, which is a wide area that is population dense. This family developed three communities all originally called Levittown (I think two still keep the name). They built thousands of homes on "curvilinear streets" that surrounded a center which contained the schools, library, city hall, and shopping center. This way, the residents didn't have to take a long trip back into the city. There's a community down here in Florida that did the same thing. I thought they were pioneering, but his stuff was going on back in the 40s and 50s.
They used all kinds of mass-production techniques including the assembly line to built houses quickly. They were able to put up 30 three- and four- bedroom Cape Cod homes a day when they built up Long Island. They bought 4,000 acres of potato fields for this development. Herbert Gans supports their creation of urban sprawl. He wrote that the farms that were taken over were no longer needed now that factory farming was providing food to the country on a grand scale. Yikes. That was going on that far back?
It makes me wonder how they got the power to do this, but it seems it was partly due to their filling a need. All those baby boomers after the war were having large families. They all needed a house and place to raise their families. It may not have been the best solution, but that's the one that was provided.
There's also a Levittown in Puerto Rico, but I don't know if there's any connection. I doubt there isn't.
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