I recently watched Gary Burns and Jim Brown’s “Radiant City” documentary on suburban sprawl. Chronicling the Moss family’s move to suburbia from inner-city Calgary, it is a critical look at the social and cultural aspects that have come with the growth of suburban “communities” in North America since the end of World War II.
Aside from periodic commentary from the filmmakers themselves and a host of guest experts, most of the film was members of the Moss family describing their daily routines and problems in suburbia and occasional scenes of the family interacting as normal. Evan Moss and his son are cynical about their new community, while Ann, the mom, tenaciously hopes that the community feel will come, focusing on the good and clearly resentful of her husband and son’s complaining.
The film is less about the environmental and ecological impacts of sprawl, but about the social implications of the suburban lifestyle. It details how suburban “communities” are monoculture and by that alone, unsustainable. Suburbia is developed by the masses so people of roughly the same age move in at the same time, have children around the same time – creating a temporary demand for schools, then grow old at the same time, becoming trapped or forced to leave because they either can no longer driver or required special services.
“Radiant City” is not a data-intensive documentary, nor is it an absolute doomsday lecture. It is, however, an intriguing new look into life in the suburbs and the shortcomings of the American dream, or in this case, the Canadian dream. It is certain to give viewers a new perspective and invoke a thoughtful dialogue on the burbs. Visit their website at www.radiantcitymovie.com.