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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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06952_Field_TCUM T517.txt
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1996-04-10
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943b
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16 lines
separated work and domicile, as never before. It exploded each
city into a dozen suburbs, and then extended many of the
forms of urban life along the highways until the open road
seemed to become non-stop cities. It created the asphalt
jungles, and caused 40,000 square miles of green and pleasant
land to be cemented over. With the arrival of plane travel, the
motorcar and truck teamed up together to wreck the railways.
Today small children plead for a train ride as if it were a
stagecoach or horse and cutter: “Before they’re gone , Daddy.”
The motorcar ended the countryside and substituted a
new landscape in which the car was a sort of steeplechaser. At
the same time, the motor destroyed the city as a casual
environment in which families could be reared. Streets, and
even sidewalks, became too intense a scene for the casual
interplay of growing up. As the city filled with mobile strangers,