Technology

     Modern technology is cited probably more often than any other single factor as the culprit responsible for all the evils existing in industrialized society: impersonalization, standardization, mobility, and rootlessness - the list could continue. Yet when we consider that technology is only a tool, as any other tool which humans have invented, we see that what comes out of this tool depends on the use of it . Since the present technological tool is larger than any other before it, the results of abuse and overuse of such a tool are magnified greater than any previous actions by man. Landscapes scarred by strip-mining, lakes and streams polluted by industrial wastes, cityscapes marred by unplanned expressways and high rise development give witness to the subservient role man and his environment have played to the fascination with technological advancement and development. For this reason we must understand that greater care and attention than ever before is necessary in our use of this tool.

     When technology resumes its proper role subordinated to human needs and goals, its benefits can be widespread. Thus technology is used to facilitate human contact and interaction, but not to replace it. It is used to create an ecologically oriented city, not an environmentally destructive one. Used to serve, it can free man and enable him to achieve greater self-realization than ever before.

     When we accept limits to the physical size and population of the city and when we attempt to establish a balance between the city and its surroundings; we must realize that an economy based on growth and expansion shall have to be modified in certain ways to conform with these aims. The city cannot be in harmony or find a dynamic balance unless it has a healthy economy which also seeks stability.  What should be the forms of such a system can only be determined through research, planning, and experimentation.