Snafu City

Snafu City is for every reader who likes beautiful buildings, but keeps seeing ugly ones go up. Or who watches helplessly as their views and vistas are ruthlessly blocked by the latest glowering tower or whimsical piece of public art.

We demand prettiness and perfection in so many areas of our life. We get our bodies six-packed, our lawns green and straight, our sofas big and cozy, our bucket seats lumbar-warm, our pugs and poodles freshly showered, our skin luminous, and our nethers scaped. Do we not hope for the same high standards applied to the rest of our world?

Do we not think ourselves deserving of attractive architecture? Of inspiring, healthful public spaces? Of well designed environments? Of beauty?

One might imagine that the traditional facilitators and guardians of our built environment: the preservationists, architects, developers, city planners, intellectuals, government inspectors, etc., could get the job done right.

And one would be wrong.

Oddly enough, there is yet another other contingent of folks, a group of key stakeholders, you might say, of sizable numbers, who go completely unnoticed. Yet if you listen carefully, they may in fact be heard … their tiny, pained mews rising in strained chorus each time another yucky building blocks a priceless view …

Who are these muffled caterwaulers? These silent screamers? Snafu City has identified them, and the time has come to release their names.

They are You and Me.

Now Snafu City is not interested in any old crappy office park, or vinyl sided strip mall, though we certainly would not weep should they choose to go bye. Snafu City is here to shine a light on the big stuff. The celebrated, noteworthy or alleged hero urban developments. The buildings that claim to be beneficial and useful yet are anything but; the urban spaces that insist on holding our attention, until we resignedly bleat our respect and love.

Using a mix of personal observation and reporting, Snafu City examines the changes to our urban habitat that raise our ire, inspire giant question marks, and have the power to shape our lives. No beast is too big. No Emperor’s outfit too small.

What snafus would you like covered at Snafu City? Send your ideas and photos to snafucity[at]me[dot]com.

Please note, Snafu City cannot respond to all ideas and correspondence. Snafu City further reserves the right to condense, edit, or otherwise modify any submitted content and images it posts, both on the site and elsewhere, in any and all media, under the Snafu City name or the name of its author.

Snafu City endeavors to only run images with permission. If you are the owner of an image that we have inadvertently run, shared, or built upon without permission, contact us and if appropriate, we will remove it promptly.

Image Credit: Masthead photo of One Rincon (sometimes called ‘San Francisco’s middle finger’) by Telstar Logistics via CC.