Sioux Falls, SD: Event Space in the Village sized City
Reflecting upon my unexpected stop in Sioux Falls and Billings, Montana I could not help but consider what these cities suggested about the process in which America’s geography, philosophy, culture and human nature have become realized through the project of the American city.
Both cities were surrounded by a gently scattered single family homes, centering around a ‘dense’ core of the CBD which bolstered 1-6 story tall buildings and ‘urban neighborhoods’ which consisted of a few blocks outside the core of more densely packed single family homes. Both cities were positioned in areas with few geographical constraints, and with little signs of civilization within a 4 hour drive in any direction.
Given the sheer size of the US, manifest destiny attitude, desire for private property rights in a wild west manner, all strung together through a transportation system which gives privilege to the car, it is somewhat of a surprise that these areas had urban centers of a sort at all. But the fact that both Sioux Falls and Billings were using their center as a place for large scale event space I believe speaks to a human desire which we have to experience the collective.
Given today’s society in which practically all shopping can be done online, in a cheaper, typically less time consuming manner (far less time spent in travel) it would be reasonable to have expected physically shopping centers to be largely on the decline. Yet we see them continuing the thrive in both suburban and urban settings. The reality that we exist within a society in which social interaction and physical experience is valued. And it is these factors that will maintain the need for a central city, even if its just to use for the evening.
