The following is a comment response to Amanda's blog post from week 5, when she visited Redlands, her hometown. The blog post can be found here.
Like several cities, Redlands seems to relate to Olin, Kling, and Poster's "The Emergence of Postsuburbia" in that suburbs now house various classes, races, and family types. In addition to the types of people that inhabit these areas, the suburbs are "characterized by a land-use pattern that is dominantly residential and a transportation pattern that is dominantly one in which people commute to work outside of the area", which you say relate perfectly to Redlands. This type of area, as described above, also relates to an idea brought up in this week's online reading: David Harvey's "The Environment of Justice" with reference to the "standard view" in which "concerns for environmental justice (if they exist at all) are kept strictly subservient to concerns for economic efficiency, continuous growth, and capital accumulation" (Harvey 7). In your post, you go on to mention that Redlands offers "a very popular (and quite large) outdoor shopping area called Citrus Plaza." According to Harvey, this shopping center simply serves to maintain economic efficiency without concern for the environment. To build this shopping center, much of the original environment of Redlands surely had to be at least slightly damaged, if not severely. And this is all to serve the purpose of economic growth.
Furthermore, relating back to Olin, Kling, and Poster's "transportation pattern that is dominantly one in which people commute to work outside of the area." This idea continues to relate to the standard view with respect to the environement (or the lack thereof). It is widely known that automobiles do a disservice to the environment, and this, still, is all to keep the economic profits flowing. Your mention of the architecture and design of Citrus Plaza that is meant to attract people relates to an idea discussed in class having to do with keeping people at just the right level of satisfaction to believe that their lives (with respect to their jobs) are sufficient enough to continue working at an unsatisfactory wage. In short, this has to do with the belief that if people feel that their entertainment in life is at a high enough level, they feel that they are living a happy life. Just as you note, the area has a "going out" type of atmosphere, and this is precisely the intention.
