• FuckYourselfEndless [ze/hir]
    ·
    1 year ago

    That's actually not that new. I think that was part of it.

    It is important to remember why cities were building highways through the fifties and sixties; why the federal government was promoting low-density suburban development and why companies were moving their corporate head offices to campuses in the country: Civil defense. One of the best defenses against nuclear bombs is sprawl; the devastation of a bomb can only cover so much area. Shawn Lawrence Otto wrote in Fool Me Twice[.]

    https://www.treehugger.com/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today-4854403

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        1 year ago

        oh you widened your city 50 miles? i'll just stuff a few extra warheads in this here missile and make sure i saturate the whole thing 🥰

        • iridaniotter [she/her, it/its]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Well sure the the obscene yields do help destroy suburbs, but another reason they exist is to ensure military targets are hit. ICBMs used to be inaccurate by a couple miles, so increasing the blast radius ensured that didn't matter. Now, ICBMs are more accurate and the world generally fields less powerful bombs.