Kunstler in a Big Yellow Taxi

In Showing my students "End of Suburbia" again tonight, I asked, "I wonder what reactions I'll get from my students tonight?" I finished grading the papers for that class yesterday and found out that Kunstler's comments on how suburban developments were named were mentioned as both most and least favorite thing about the movie. In case you've never seen the movie or have and forgotten what he said, here it is from memory.

Housing developments are always named after what they've destroyed. If it's named Quail Run, then all the quails have been exterminated. If it's Oak Ridge, then all the oaks have been removed.

That thought leads into today's song, "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell, which tells its listeners that "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. They paved paradise, put up a parking lot."


I'll have more student reactions later.  Right now, I have to keep grading.