Modern roads were developed in the XX century at the time cars became affordable for the Americans. As the society develops and people invent more advanced technologies the life gets more and more convenient and safe. It concerns roads as well. A modern road should be safe and provide the traffic safety. The road engineers should think about how to reduce the possible harm on the highways from traffic collisions. The construction, design, and regulation of the roads should be well thought out.
Highway design is always based on the landscape principles and engineering principles of grade cross-section, right-of-way, width, drainage, roadway, structural strength and durability. The concepts of a complete highway are close to the principles of landscape design basics (Simonson, W.H.). Also, parkway development had a great influence on the highway creation. The parkway was the modern arterial highway called expressway and it embodied the same principles of design (Simonson, W.H.). So, well-thought arterial ways can look like elongated parks and add to the city more grace, beauty, and green open space.
Roads have a great social meaning as they make our lives faster. The reduced time for traveling offer exclusive opportunities for people who travel for pleasure, trade and business. But for some people, the appearance of a new road can have a negative effect, for instance, in case when a better new road is situated far from home and this lowers the price of the house. Statistics says that the property values that have been decreased in cutoff neighborhoods lost housing quality over time.
One of the most serious negative effects is its influence of environment as highways are extended sources of light, air pollution, and noise pollution.
The environment people live in influences on their way of thinking and imagination. The perception of the modern world reflects in everything that people create, for instance, in artworks, music and movies, of course. Nowadays one of the most popular film genres is science fiction. According to Susan Sontag, the science fiction films correspond to the people’s imagination of disaster. She believes that fantasy is able to normalize what is psychologically unbearable, for instance, such films evoke a strange apathy while viewing the processes of destruction, contamination, and radiation, everything that people should find depressing (Sontag, S., 42). Most part of ethical values is embodied not in people, but in the décor of the films, because we experience things, but not people, as the source of power (Sontag, S., 45).
But as the enemies of the human beings are aliens, cruelty is justified. Susan Sontag is sure that science fiction movies satisfy people’s need for a "good war," that usually raise no moral problems, and has no moral qualifications. That is why fantasy is mostly viewed by people who like war films (Sontag, S., 46). Susan Sontag believes that science fiction films can influence on the society and push it to make destructions if the government wishes it, as it happened in history not once (Sontag, S., 48), for instance, during Kristallnacht when the Nazis killed Jews (‘aliens’ so to say) just because of their nationality.
So, science fiction films may have a great impact on society that is very mobile and used to absorb new ideas very quickly.
Works Cited List
Simonson, W.H. “Landscape Design and Its Relation to the Modern Highway”. fhwa.dot.gov. 1952. Web. Accessed 11 February 2016 at https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/simonson.cfm
Sontag, S. “The Imagination of Disaster”
