5/10: Reflection

It would seem that the problem, after discussing during class, stems from our regions themselves. The way in which the regions, states, counties, cities, towns, etc. are laid out took into considerations many factors, but the natural environment doesn't seem to be one of them. The initial "land staking" was more of a whoever gets there first can take the land approach. The later blocking off the land was done in the most simple manner to make taxing easier which led into ease of government control.

Hindsight tells us that we should've developed regions around watersheds and built with the environment, instead of adjusting the environment for our economic and equity ease. Short of starting over, there is not much we can do to alter the regions we have put in place in a manner that binds with the natural environment. Having the knowledge and power to design sustainably from now on, any alterations and new regions, government, land decisions made should be done so accounting for the sustainability of our environment in hopes that one day we can achieve a design that we should've started with initially.

To be perfectly honest, I have never seen a topographic map of the United States and been able to analyze it in a manner that highlights the water sheds and natural flow to a central area. This insight though, is something that makes perfect sense in the way of sustainable design. It is something that would solve much of the water scarcity, flooding, and drought problems we see today due to our neglecting of the natural regions developed by our water sheds initially.

Again, I know it seems redundant, but I keep going back to the question towards the article's authors of how we can turn this sinking ship around when it seems like such a globally encompassing problem with little means of progress and short of starting from day one when foreigners first hit land in the Americas? Another question I wonder about, is if knowledge of the water sheds existed historically when regional layout and design decisions were made, and possibly neglected in favor of easier, less costly options made by those with power not representing of the people?