Dwelling in Expanded Biotic Communities: Steps Toward Reconstructive Postmodern Communities - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 325

Summerlin

Las Vegas

Green Valley

FIGURE 18.1
Map of the Las Vegas communities of Summerlin and Green Valley.

front of the house, encouraging residents to leave and return to the development completely
sealed in a car, never venturing out into the neighborhood (Figure 18.2). Furthermore, the
homes have little room for growth or additional construction, forcing families to move into
new constructions when the family grows too large for the original home. This movement
adds to the isolation and lack of community cohesion.
A planned community center stood empty soon after its construction because it filled
no need for residents and it has become the corporate offices of the developers. 14 The
sterility of the former center, with its unused outdoor checkerboard tables by a fountain,
surrounded by lifelike statues of people engaged in “typical” acts of community living,
illustrates how communities cannot be planned and built overnight and are truly organic
entities (Figure 18.3). Effective community is not fostered by building an entire community
with all of the structures already in place, but rather the features of a community should