North America - Help!

[L1]

Hello All,

I want to try and see whether there are many architects who share my feelings
about North America.
I have been here for 3 years in a 'mid-sized city' with one away, I am about to
do my registration exams (having been registered in the UK before) and I don't
know what I am doing! Is it just me or is this really the ugliest built region in the
world? Of course there are individual buildings, not as many as there should be,
but the day to day just grinds me down..the sea of asphalt and lumpy kerbs
sometimes seems like all there is and all there ever will be. I'd love to hear. Its
Ontario BTW.

[L1]

Come on, what's it to be? Engage with " spaces and forces of uneven development produced through processes of Postfordist urbanization " or exit stage left/right
or any direction, running scared?!

[gunter]

''Postfordist urbanization''

wattz dat ?

[L1]

Basically post-industrial, the ford means Henry Ford.

[helloinsane]

Have you considered other parts of Canada / the US? The exurbs are brutal anywhere, Europe included.

[gunter]

There's not a whole lot wrong with Toronto, surely?

[L1]

My partner is tenured at a University, and transportation/snow means another home in T. (which is OK but its not London which is where I started), but really this is a general question. Its about the state of Architecture in North America (the US is worse than CA for these problems), someone has to do exurbs because there are a lot of them..., I have never seen one quite like this in Europe BTW we are protected from these extremes. As architects we have to take on what comes.., but are there maybe some things that are just too much to ask. Helloinsane just wants to get away from the problem. Maybe Canada should be prevented from soliciting immigrants until such time as it has a country to offer? Or am I at the leading edge -as they would have us believe.

[helloinsane]

I'm not suggesting there is an escape, I was more asking if you were basing your experience entirely on southern Ontario or if you'd had the chance to see much of the rest of the continent.

[L1]

Well, forever I've been planning to visit Detroit & Chicago hopefully I will do that soon. Otherwise I've travelled to Boston, New York and Pittsburgh, in Canada, Quebec Ottawa & Montreal, I spent 11/2 years working in Hamilton. Vancouver needs a look too and I have not read Learning from Las Vegas which I should.