my Chronicles from the Sprawl (pilot post)

In the mid 80's (last century ) William Gibson wrote a series of books - "Neuromancer", "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive" - they late have become collectively known as the "sprawl trilogy". Some believe the zenith of "cyberpunk".

Another (short stories) book, "Burning Chrome" fits well in the "sprawl trilogy" too, and, by the way, is my favorite.

But what is "the sprawl"? The main (certainly not the only!) location of the trilogy is what the author calls the "Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis" (BAMA) - Aka " ***THE*** sprawl ".

The BAMA does not exist yet. The close we can get is the BosWas Sprawl, a place were we can drive almost 1000 Kms, between Boston and Washington, without leaving a populated area making it - argumentably - the biggest city in the world (55 millions inhabitants?)

The second part of the BAMS (the ChAtlanta) is yet somehow late in its development :-)).

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of "sprawl trilogy" I plan to drive - with a couple of travelling companions - the BosWas Sprawal, with only a couple of the detours (guess where!) and write "my Chronicles from the Sprawl".

Photo 1: The North America West Coast Sprawls (from a VERY recent article of the July 3-10, 2006 issue of "Newsweek").

Photo 2: The BosWash Sprawl (colour=population density)





from: [ http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/s/s0668900.html ]:

SPRAWL

sprawl [ sprôl ]v. sprawled, sprawl·ing, sprawls v. intr.

To sit or lie with the body and limbs spread out awkwardly.

To spread out in a straggling or disordered fashion: untidy tenements sprawling toward the river. v. tr.

To cause to spread out in a straggling or disordered fashion. n.

A sprawling position or posture.

Haphazard growth or extension outward, especially that resulting from real estate development on the outskirts of a city: urban sprawl.

Some OTHER links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BosWash

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson_(novelist)

http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/gibson/gibson1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sprawl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sprawl_trilogy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Zero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_Overdrive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rose_Hotel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rose_Hotel_(1998_movie)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Ferrara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_95

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_1

http://geography.about.com/cs/urbansprawl/a/megalopolis.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways_along_the_BosWash_corridor

[ In July to October, 2006 I plan a series of posts celebrating the 20th anniversary of the William Gibson "Sprawl Trilogy". This is one of such posts. To find the other posts just search for the link near the upper right corner of any page of this blog ]