Blog #4: Soulless Surfaces

These Buildings Were Demolished for Soulless Surface Parking Spaces
Jason Dowell
This opinion piece on the demolition of historic Milwaukee buildings sheds light on the aesthetically harmful look of the building's replacement: parking-lot space. Dowell goes into detail about numerous different examples of this through supplying visual evidence along with a personal description of how he feels about each demolition. 

The depth in Dowell's thinking goes deep into the overall mood and feeling of Milwaukee. He "believes density also enhances privacy -- That visual control is a policing thing. When you have all these open spaces, the city becomes a panopticon, where you can see everything all at once." (Dowell) While this is an opinion, I feel as though it's a valid point to bring up when dissecting the new aesthetic of Milwaukee. Cities offer privacy through looming building after building making people feel almost protected and hidden. Without these rows of buildings, people feel exposed and uncomfortable making them lean away from the soul reason why they moved to a city. 

You can really sense the care in Dowell's writing voice when he uses passionate descriptors like "surface lots form the black holes of a city’s soul." (Dowell) The passion in this topic is so strong that he gets almost poetic with his writing. The way he expresses his concern is quite compelling. 

Overall, Dowell uses visual evidence and informative/convincing writing to properly convey his concern for the future of Milwaukee's city aesthetic.