was about to say "at least there's some green space" but then I zoomed in and they're fucking GOLF COURSES
This was my exact thought process lol, I thought the part with the big long park was really nice. Nope, it's an enormous fenced off lawn that only four people are allowed onto at a time. A very eat shit and die to whoever designed this.
What is the thing with boomers and golf? Out of all the things you can spend your retirement years on, why is it golf that is built into the street plan of boomer housing? You don't see boomer neighbourhoods constructed around petanque courts or fishing lakes.
They're golf clubs so they can control who comes in, as in they don't let minorities in. They feel safer. The courses are just big green lawns, so they're cozy. Golfers spend most of the time talking so it's how they socialize. Plus it's staffed with terrified servants, usually the kind the golfers are used to if you know what I'm saying. Not only can they speak to the manager, they are the manager. They're members so they can complain and get you fired. It's everything they love all in one place.
It's associated with rich people. If you can live on the golf course wow siree, you really made it in life! That kind of sales pitch works really well on older generations, especially people who move away from their family to a "retirement community" (inherently middle class to upper middle class aka strivers).
their wives aren't allowed in, nor are the wrong kind of people, they can get drunk all day, and they can cheat at this game without anyone caring, as well as what others have said.
This is Sun City AZ, which is basically a retirement community for boomers. There's a church in the middle of each of those circles. They also have a bunch of boomers called the Sun City Posse that ride around looking for people to profile. These guys used to wear branded M-a-r-i-copa County Sheriff uniforms, and rode in vehicles that were also branded for the longest time. One of the more bizarre places I've spent time looking up on the internet.
There’s a church in the middle of each of those circles.
The image is now more cursed with this new information
It's going to be abandoned before long. Two vast and trunkless legs sticking out of the sand.
BOOMER IMPERIAL CITY FROM OBLIVION
BOOMER IMPERIAL CITY FROM OBLIVION
I'm going to stack 5000 paintbrushes so I can dump infinite cheese on this abomination. Cheese and watermelon until world.exe crashes to desktop.
Fun little thought experiment, let's assume that these are each one or two family homes. Now, let's move those families into six story apartment buildings, with five spacious apartments on each floor. An absolutely miniscule building by modern city standards. Without changing the population density, you could replace 90% of the construction in this picture with a forest.
you know who didn't live like this? THE SOVIET UNION WITH THEIR COMMUNAL APARTMENTS, AND THAT'S GOMMULISM
An I the only one who is kind of infuriated with the streets not meeting in the middle of the circles?
A lot of these communities are built explicitly hostile to through-traffic. I grew up in a Houston suburb, and I would get lost in the little subdivisions all the time as the developers intended. This was to discourage people from bypassing main roads in order to short-cut through residential communities. And also, ostensibly, to discourage burglars unfamiliar with the neighborhood.
You ended up with some weird geography. For instance, my friend's house had a cul-de-sac that was separated by a little strip of lawn from another cul-de-sac. It was a two or three minute drive between them, so if I was on my bike I'd be better off just cutting through someone's yard than sticking to the roads. There was also a golf-course that had straighter and more direct routes than the neighborhood it encapsulated, and I'd piss off golfers all the time by riding backwards along the golfing paths in order to short-cut through.
Panopticons
Edit: just can't not see it that way. Especially with the knowledge that there's a church at the center of them. Wonder if the churches are elevated too.