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This Land is Your Land
In the midst of some research I stumbled across the website of The Center for Land Use Interpretation. Most interesting is their Land Use Database. Pick a state and it will show you "unusual and exemplary sites" catagorized by everything from cultural, to nuclear, to transporation, and more. Selections from California include an abandonded solar power plant, the now abandonded Ambassador Hotel, the world's largest parking lot, assorted military bases, power plants, mines, environmental disasters, and Jonnies Coffee Shop... I swear I can't stop looking at this. Oh man, Tinkertown!?! For planning cross-country trips or scouting locations for sci-fi movies, this site is like one-stop shopping.
The CLUI site warmed that special place in my heart for ruins. Perhaps it plays on my obsession with post-apocolyptic stories, but I don't think I'm the only one. Apparently this photographer from Modern Ruins is pretty into them as well. Who doesn't want to see what's left of the '64 World's Fair? And when that doesn't satisfy you, there's always the Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.
And did someone say abandoned bunkers? How about a VR tour of West Virginia's Greenbrier Bunker, designed to house the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate in case of nuclear attack? Why not? But that doesn't give you half the taste of luxury bunker living that photographer Andreas Magdanz gives you in Dienststelle Marienthal. Creeeeepy.
Posted by Steve Lambert on 06/17/2005 | Permalink
Comments
Thanks, Stevie-boy, for this link. I'm already obsessed and planning some trips. Y'all should go with us. . .we can rally the troops and make a summer trip out of Timbuktoo (old mining town outside of Yuba City).
Posted by: Tod Brilliant | Jul 2, 2005 2:21:41 PM
The photo of the abandoned solar power plant demonstrates how inefficient and physically destructive to the earth the use of ground mounted solar is and why as a developed world we needed to remember solar belongs on rooftops, parking lots and all other forms of pre-existing structures. WE need not destroy resources ie land sites to house an alternative that best services the source of energy needs by being close to the site not miles away on wild lands. If we really needed to abuse the wilderness to gain the sun's rays it would be understood. What's next Half Dome covered with PV panels? Dollars need to be spent on R&D to achieve the best possible way to pull solar from outer space. The entire world can rejoice and stop depending on fossil fuels that today are spiking in price $$$ which always drives the need for a new discovery. Irresponsible ground mounted solar will destroy the achievments of the true solar environmentalists as deserts, meadows, waterways, buttes, mountains, wheat fields, corn fields, grazing lands and more are given to solar arrays as money is exchanged rather than kw hours. Ground mounted solar is about money not the environment. Who will stop this abuse and consider the ramifications of ground mounted arrays before its too late?We are gifted this earth we live on for a short time and to destroy its resources with ground mounted solar makes no dollars or sense for the future of energy. Write to your congress person, senator, assembly person and any other person that will listen to facts that state we need rooftop or parking lot solar before we create irresponsible ground mounts that will be coming soon to a wildland near you... Read the suns rays as they cast shadows from wild oaks they say preserve and protect not destroy resources with the precious energy from the sun because we are one.
Posted by: ml | Aug 18, 2005 11:11:13 AM
