The commerical strips that seem to flank every major urban road are a signature marker of modern America. Not so much in the older
and more crowded North East but in the newer towns and cheaper land of the South, Midwest and West, the concrete and tarmac forecourts
of windowed warehouses take the land for 100 to 500 feet back on both sides of every city artery. At their pristine best these
landscapes are homogenous, characterless, interchangeable and anonymous. Without their signs and skin deep plaster facades we could not tell one
store from another or a restaurant from a movie theatre. Without their bottomless supplies of cheap goods and services we would have no motive to go
near them.