#89: Mars Is a Place on Earth
As you're probably aware, large portions of the American landscape are exceedingly car-oriented. At some point in my life, I realized that the most extreme of these environments feel similar to what I've always imagined a Mars settlement would be like, or any interplanetary colony for that matter. There are many parallels (keep in mind, this is my cartoonish version of Martian life based on video games and movies): You can't travel anywhere without operating a large mechanized apparatus; you spend most of your time indoors in climate-controlled spaces, with brief uncomfortable stints outdoors that usually last only a few minutes at a time; nothing much happens; your contact with the greater human race is mediated by a suite of electronic communication devices; and there's a vague, ever-present feeling that the external environment is hostile to your presence. Many of us grew up fantasizing about space travel. It's fun to drive around the American sprawlscape imagining you're actually on a hostile planet.
Last year, Geoff Manaugh wrote a speculative article about how police will solve crimes on Mars after humans have settled the planet and multiple generations have been born there. After surveying the climate's effect on criminal investigations (the dry, freezer-like air would preserve evidence; it would be easier to disguise murders as accidents) and the jurisdictional headaches that Martian law-breaking would pose ("Antarctica has become one of the most widely cited examples of how law enforcement might operate on other worlds"), Manaugh reaches a more interesting hypothesis: There probably wouldn't be much crime on Mars, because inhabitants would be under constant surveillance. Airlocks would record everyone's movement, sensors would continuously monitor vital signs, and the planet's inhospitable environment means almost all activity would be contained indoors. "Look at the data logs; make an arrest. It really could be that simple."
Doesn't that sound a lot like parts of the built environment here on Earth? One of Manaugh's points throughout his article is that human civilization would reproduce its same flaws on Mars, from violence to police corruption to lack of privacy. Throughout history, frontiers have been where we experiment with innovative societal arrangements, but they are also where we most faithfully reproduce the most current version of our culture, unfettered by the historical customs that temper it back home. In the United States, the frontier closed in 1890 but the suburbs of existing cities were the last tabula rasa we found to settle, and those places became home to modes of living that weren't possible in the crowded old cities, but still reflected a modernized version of those cities' culture. If Mars is a new frontier, it's another clean slate; when humans settle it we'll get another shot at making a pure statement, without the familiar institutions or traditions to hold us back. It might be neoliberal, it might be cultish, it might just be boring, but it will also feel like where we came from.
Reads:
"Ritual as an Urban Design Problem"—a great Sarah Perry essay from a few years ago. "Human activities other than consumption and 'being stored'—as in day cares, schools, prisons, offices, nursing homes, and “housing units” themselves—are made difficult and uncomfortable by the physical built environment itself."
Richard Florida on how housing supply became the most controversial issue in urbanism.