Another View of Suburbia

As a licensed architect with a master’s degree in real estate development, I feel that Colin Westerbeck’s comments regarding David Maisel’s photograph (“Oblivion 1382-52p,” Photo Synthesis, Jan. 28) seem more like his opinion of suburban living than an interpretation of the photograph. Many literary elites continue to display a not-so-subtle prejudice against those in suburban environments. Although the photo depicts a curvilinear arrangement of densely packed tract homes, there is an effort to create shared open space in the form of schools, parks and landscaping.

Rather than a “gothic” vision of our landscape, perhaps the photo represents a realistic view of the tremendous efforts and costs that go into building infrastructure in the form of roads and utilities, and providing single-family housing. The West’s transition from natural landscape to housing tracts and high-rises reflects the pressure of population growth and employment centers. Maisel’s photo of tract housing typifies suburban-style planning and investment, not indigestion, as Westerbeck suggests.

Jeffrey Weinstein

Los Angeles