The South Could Learn From The South

When one thinks of innovative, sustainable urban planning, the American South doesn’t come to mind. As the story goes, the South’s most significant boom took place after World War II, spurred by the advent of air conditioning and the growth of defense-related industries. We know what forms of development the mid 20th century brought: sprawling, looping subdivisions with homes on oversized lots; seven-lane arterial roads with big box stores and garrish signage; downtown urban renewal schemes with brutalist concrete architecture and dead streets. Really, it was the same stuff being built everywhere else in mid-century America, just more of it, and worse. And with Piggly Wigglys.