utopia | Between Shadow and Light

I was on Yahoo looking up the top stories when an article caught my eye: “Private Island Homes”. I clicked on the article and began reading about these different houses spanning from states such as New York and Pennsylvania to more luxurious areas such as the Mediterranean and the Grand Cayman Islands. These were no ordinary summerhouses; they were amazing. The first to catch my eye was this house, a private house with a retractable glass canopy completely surrounded by water. The really amazing characteristic of this house is that it can be moved and placed anywhere. How cool!

My second favorite house was this one. It looks like something straight out of a movie or video game. It is located in the Grand Cayman Islands and is part of a very selective community of 19 deckhouses such as this. It provides all time access to the water with its huge, glass windows on every side, wrap around deck, and dock underneath one section of the deck.

These houses look just as extravagant as the some of the ones I’ve seen in SL. In Dee, most of the architecture is large, stone building with old European flare, which is very unlike these houses. These houses remind me of the ones I’ve seen on some of the more exclusive beaches or even getaway islands I’ve explored. Since they carry similarities it got me thinking: who had the idea first? Did architects get the idea for these houses from SL or was it the other way around? Because the houses had elements of futuristic and outlandish qualities, I thought at first maybe SL was the prototype for a house such as these. The idea that once someone made it online, it became a reality.

After reading Elijah Anderson’s “The Cosmopolitan Canopy” I immediately tried to relate it to various aspects of my life. However, I found myself stuck; I could not seem to find how I could find a relationship to Elijah’s concept of “urban public spaces of big cities have become more riven by issues of race, poverty, and crime,” and how a cosmopolitan canopy is a place where people of all walks of life and background can come together to escape this “pervasive wariness toward strangers”.

I thought of the place I grew up in, Carmel, Indiana, my home. Carmel, Indiana is the not only the wealthiest place in my state, but it has also made Forbes list a variety of times for high rankings or various awards. Carmel, Indiana has a strategic location that attributes to its lush property and haven like atmosphere. It is located right outside Indianapolis, a well-populated city, known for crime, violence, drug use, as well as a number of homeless people. To me I see the total opposite of cosmopolitan canopy, because Carmel was originally made to keep the poor out, and the wealthy in, but most important it was made to keep black people out. There is no middle ground, there is no such thing as people from all walks of life coming together in Carmel. It took me years until I could see for myself that the rest of my state and country is not like Carmel. Most people are surprised when I tell them that Carmel is an urban area with well over than 85,000 people. The best way I could ever describe my home is simple, a Utopia. An unrealistic Utopia.

I finally understood the “Cosmopolitan Canopy” when I related it to my new home, Lexington, Kentucky. University of Kentucky is that cosmopolitan canopy that I never got to experience until now. We are all brought together from different parts of life, different races, different ethnic groups, etc. We learn off of one another in our campus-canopy answer. Last night when I celebrated UK winning the basketball tournament, I was surrounded by an urban crowd of cheering. We all had one thing in common; thousands of people from different walks of life had the common appreciation towards our men’s basketball team. To see an entire school come together really reinforced my idea of this cosmopolitan canopy.

***
Source:

Elijah Anderson, “The Cosmopolitan Canopy,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (September 2004) 595: 14-31. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4127607