Speaker
Description
What is a commercial strip? Is it necessarily motor-vehicle based? What underscores strips' emergence and development, and since when? Are all strips essentially alike, sharing the same initial circumstances? If not, how do those circumstances differ, and do differing strip types arise from different initial contexts? I see little evidence that these questions have been systematically addressed since Jakle and Mattson's seminal work on the Urbana-Champaign strip. And I think that, forgivably, their case study served to narrow our grasp of the sheer variety of strips' initial circumstances and subsequent development. In this presentation I hope to remedy these lacunae and encourage further research focused on this important element of the American commercial roadside.
