The Grid

One more thing about Scott (Seeing Like a State).

He picks up on something I've often mused about: the American gridded landscape.

I've often mused that somehow dwelling within the objective correlative of modernist rage (i.e., living in a cartesian coordinate system of streets and other infrastructures) is bound to have some sort of cognitive if not metaphysical impact (if theories of behavior and environment are to be believed at all).

Scott is more interested in its origin as an example of high-modernist excess: The grid creates a "God's-eye view", stressing the Enlightenment bias toward formalized order. In the cartesian ideal, no local knowledge is necessary to navigate a grid.