On the Topic of Urbanization...

After going through the three context links, I think that the one that stood out to me was the article "Gertrude Stein's Oakland." It discusses how a fairly well known quote, "there is no there there," expresses the sorrow of unfamiliarity when Stein returned to Oakland after 40 years away, and how everything that had composed Oakland in her memory had been replaced with urban sprawl.

While I don't think that many people within my generation have experienced such a drastic example of urbanization, change is an inevitability. In that regard, while Generation Z may not have felt the pain of alienation that Stein felt, I'm certain that each one of us can look back to moments in our childhood in nostalgic reverie. It's only human to do so: we find comfort in things held constant, and we are uncomfortable when placed into completely new situations. When we find that things we remembered fondly have been upheaved, pangs of melancholy are to be expected; we can see reactions from things as simple as coming back to a "cleaned" room, to the more severe example as in the case of Stein.

I think that this is a large part of why people revisit their alma maters, even if they didn't particularly enjoy their time there. People will often view their pasts with rose-tinted glasses, and grasping at what once was to relive what they believe to have been happier times helps to come to terms with whatever situation that they're in now. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, especially for those who come out of dire straits, but I do believe that there are still aspects of the past that everyone craves, or at the very least look back fondly upon.

Frankly, it's likely that those growing up now will experience something similar to Stein within their lifetimes, especially if they return to someplace they lived 40 years prior. Technological innovations have been coming at unprecedented rates, and residential areas are being constructed across the nation. The cities we grew up in are different from the ones they are today, it's just that we were there while they changed. Although Stein's case was extreme in the sense that she had to take in all of the changes at once, I'm certain that if we ever think back to how things once were, we will feel tinges of sadness.