That’s actually not that new. I think that was part of it.
It is important to remember why cities were building highways through the fifties and sixties; why the federal government was promoting low-density suburban development and why companies were moving their corporate head offices to campuses in the country: Civil defense. One of the best defenses against nuclear bombs is sprawl; the devastation of a bomb can only cover so much area. Shawn Lawrence Otto wrote in Fool Me Twice[.]
Problem with the suburban sprawl protects against nukes logic, is strategic nuclear warheads just got exponentially more powerful to compensate. Rather than 10 to 20 kiloton weapons that can wipe out the dense urban center of a major city, everyone started building 10,000 to 25,000 kiloton warheads that enable only a half dozen warheads to turn a few hundred square miles of suburban spawl into a firestorm.
The argument only made sense in the early 1950s before everyone figured out how to create multi megaton strategic nuclear weapons. Idiots fail to fully grasp just how powerful strategic nuclear weapons became.
Suburban sprawl as a nuclear defense strategy is a new one to me lmao
That’s actually not that new. I think that was part of it.
https://www.treehugger.com/why-sprawl-was-caused-nuclear-arms-race-and-why-matters-more-ever-today-4854403
Problem with the suburban sprawl protects against nukes logic, is strategic nuclear warheads just got exponentially more powerful to compensate. Rather than 10 to 20 kiloton weapons that can wipe out the dense urban center of a major city, everyone started building 10,000 to 25,000 kiloton warheads that enable only a half dozen warheads to turn a few hundred square miles of suburban spawl into a firestorm.
The argument only made sense in the early 1950s before everyone figured out how to create multi megaton strategic nuclear weapons. Idiots fail to fully grasp just how powerful strategic nuclear weapons became.
oh you widened your city 50 miles? i’ll just stuff a few extra warheads in this here missile and make sure i saturate the whole thing 🥰