Capitalism, Underlying Selfishness of Companies and The Nature Of Urban Centers

Critical Analysis
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Overview
Critical analysis is simply the procedural and systematic dissection of a literary piece. The main aim of critical analysis is to increase a reader's extent of understanding the content of a given publication, be it a book or an article. Through the evaluation of the different arguments in a literary piece, critical analysis increases the breadth and realm of the mind's interpretation of the same. The growth and development of the current infrastructure are to a great extent, the work of the government in collaboration with the private sector. The growth of cities and the entire concept of urbanization are a culmination of the successes of extreme levels of selfishness coated in the ideals of capitalism. Urban planning has been a great field of study that has enabled the responsible and sensible growth of cities on the available natural resources, whether in the present or the future.
There is the other artistic view that augurs well with general planning and perception of the cities; the ability to look at an urban plan as an orderly conglomeration of different entities, both stationary, and moving. On the other hand, however, it is the changing aspects of the city that significantly determine not only its aesthetics but also the rate of economic activity and lifestyle of the people therein. The concept of capitalism and the underlying selfishness of the companies involved is what are discussed in Jonathan Kwitny's article, the great transportation conspiracy: A juggernaut named desire. On the other hand, the visual nature of urban centers is well encompassed in The Image of the Environment by Kevin Lynch. This paper will critically analyze the arguments proposed by these authors in their respective publications.
Critical Analysis of The Great Transportation Conspiracy: A Juggernaut Named Desire.
The main argument of this article is that there is a great danger when the government entrusts public interests to private corporations. The author takes the case of General Motors as a perfect illustration of this argument. He states that before the emergence of oil as the primary source of energy, the country and most of its cities fully depended on electricity for transportation. It was the real embodiment of the concept of clean energy, from the railroads, to the automobiles in the transit system that formed the backbone of urban transport. The different modes of transport powered by electricity ensured that there was very little to no traffic snarl-up in the cities.
While this was happening, the country obliviously then decided to entrust the policies on automobiles to General Motors in collaboration with other allied firms. This was the beginning of problems in the transportation sector of the nation's economy. General Motors steadily shifted the energy utilization from electricity to oil and the machine usage from public to private. The company indeed continued manufacturing buses and cars in equal measure, in the efforts to uphold the central transit system. The public was delighted with the events.
However, the real rot lied under all this. The conspiracy was well covered beneath all this façade of development and local production...