Niagara

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/101/niagara

This is a wonderful episode of a show I really enjoy - This American Life. The history of the American landscape is an overwhelmingly visual experience, but it really requires an understanding of the going-ons of the place or style being considered. Forces such as economics, available resources and culture (just to new a few) intermingle and shape the landscape of human settlement.

For Niagara Falls these dynamics have been embedded in the existence of the one of the worlds great wonders, yet the town as it stands today is not what one would expect. Is it uniquely American to exploit something so significant, make it cheap, and then throw it away?

The picture painted by the monologues and interviews is bleak. The narrators explain the Falls with stories of suicide, industrial ruin and failed politics. It may seem melodramatic but this is a very real part of Niagara Falls. The result is a town which a friend of mine  describes as a "post industrial wasteland." Indeed, is how most people who live near the town feel about it and I would agree. This situation is the height of irony, but the American relationship with the falls was flawed from the get-go.