Avoiding the Real World

This thesis, entitled Avoiding the Real World, postulates on alternative urban formations that could circumvent further decline in our current dystopian scenario. This takes the form of the redistribution of people and resources in New Jersey, a state of unique sprawl and density who’s development has been driven by its relationship to the urban centers of New York and Philadelphia. It proposes a renewed interest in the linear city model as a means of effectively densifying the land area and allowing the reappropriation of space for agricultural and clean energy supply, functions that have long been subordinated to home ownership and the expansion of the middle class in New Jersey’s suburbia. This is a critical urban investigation into rethinking the flawed conception of cities and urbanity by focusing on the territorial implications of planning systems. It focuses on the fundamentals of the state’s built environment to show a model of how an altered urban fabric and new urban typologies can be both critical of and suggest a remedy for the effects of the world’s dystopian descent