Base station church tower Maasland, Holland
They have been with us for less than two decades and they are now a relentless necessity. We’d sooner do without flush toilets than our cell phones. If we can’t reach everyone from everywhere, or get the latest stock quotes while we’re on the treadmill, our business and personal lives are deeply compromised.
You’re in the Pet Food Aisle and you’re drawing a blank: does Whiskers distain Meow Mix or Little Friskies? No problem, just pull your trusty cell out of its holster and call home.
To keep Whiskers purring, of course, the call HAS to go through. And there’s the rub. What we gave little thought to as our addiction grew was that total connectivity implied infrastructure, which isn’t always pretty – especially when it is given precious little forethought. You can’t miss the sprawl: cell towers towering over pine forests, littering highways, atop pristine hills and ridges, sometimes “disguised” as trees-not-found-in-nature. These fake trees are graphic testimony to the problem, but they are a sorry charade. You stare at them longer than you do the silver blighters.
I have provided some examples at right that were taken one recent afternoon by Andrew Santaniello and me as we travelled from Princeton, New Jersey to New Haven, Connecticut. Most adorn the Garden State Parkway.
Being an architect my personal pet peeve is the proliferation of cell antennas attached to buildings. This is apparently an inexpensive and less contentious alternative to the much larger towers, and the building’s owner is paid a handsome fee. Some of these communications conglomerates have convinced houses of worship to opt for mammon over architectural and spiritual integrity.
Saints, preserve us! This commercial transaction is a Faustian bargain. It is the first sign that the building isn’t valued, and other signs are likely to follow soon enough. Of course, you and I, the great un-compensated, must live with the resulting side effects of this capitalistic, every-company-for-itself infrastructure.
I submit that we have to preserve precious lines of sight by standing up for our shared landscapes and architectural vistas. I own a cell phone. It is a fact of modern life, but it isn’t THE preeminent value. We have to think of better ways to stay connected, as well as true to our aesthetic values.
Until advancing technology makes towers and antennas obsolete, here’s my suggestion for mitigating this proliferation of visual pollution. Rather than having these unsightly things go up willy-nilly, at random intervals, and in various shapes, sizes and colors, the government should impose some infrastructural uniformity. Telephone poles carry phone, electric, and televisions connections. Something similar should be done for cellular phone transmissions.
Regularly spaced, similarly-sized towers and antennas along major highways with the capacity to carry high volumes of phone calls for more than one company would be preferable to the current, burgeoning hodgepodge. And while we’re at it, we should make provisions for tearing these things down when their usefulness has passed – which I hope will be soon. Can you hear me now?
2 Comments
I share some of your contempt for cell towers, however it should be noted that few really complain about the distasteful and ubiquitous above ground power transmission lines. They are everywhere and no one seems to notice them. Cell towers pale in comparison on the ugliness scale. They will “go away” in our consciousness in time.
Want to charge that cell phone? You need those power lines.
Want to talk, text or web search on that cell phone? You need those cell towers.
As an aside, a cell tower thinly disguised as a (non native) ponderosa pine in New York is worse than just a cell tower.
Just sayin’
Patrick, you and I are on the same page. I have no contempt for cell towers so long as they are honest. What I’m troubled by is the gathering proliferation of cell transmitters atop buildings that were never meant to have them and on towers that are disguised as pine trees.
Like you, I’m in favor of simple tower structures with cell transmitters mounted upon them. There’s a genuineness and even a certain functional jauntiness to them (please see additional photo above). I would propose that these tower structures be provided every mile or so as part of the public infrastructure of our highways. They would come at public cost, but space on them for the transmitters would be leased to private providers and almost certainly would represent a nice revenue stream. Maybe even reduce the deficit!