Cultural Convergence

For popular culture, the challenges derive from unsustainable practices designed to promote uniform landscapes and experiences. Popular culture can significantly modify or control the environment. It may be imposed on the environment rather than spring forth from it, as with many folk customs.

In order to enjoy some popular customs, the environment must be modified in order to enable participation in a leisure activity, sometimes dramatically. Even if the resulting built environment may be difficult to visually differentiate from its “natural,” equivalent, it is actually the result of deliberate modifications of the landscape by people in pursuit of popular social customs.

The spread of a popular culture product across larger spaces results in a loss of localized folk culture diversity, and convergence of cultural preferences. This process is known as cultural homogenization. Some question the actions of Western countries, who have been most successful in commodifying and exporting elements of their popular culture, because the resulting dominance of these values is regarded as a form of cultural imperialism.

The diffusion of some popular customs can adversely impact environmental quality and cultural diversity in multiple ways:

• Pollution of the landscape.

• Depletion of scarce natural resources.

• Crowding-out of locally owned businesses.

Uniform Cultural Experiences

The distribution of popular culture around the world tends to produce more uniform landscapes. The spatial expression of a popular custom in one location will be similar to another. In fact, promoters of popular culture want a uniform appearance to generate “product recognition” and greater consumption.

Over time, the uniform landscapes of popular culture replace folk landscapes and offer a different set of cultural experiences to inhabitants. The diffusion of fast-food restaurants is a good example of such uniformity. A fast-food restaurant is usually organized as a franchise, which is an agreement between a corporation and businesspeople to market that corporation’s products in a local area. The franchise agreement lets the local outlet use the company’s name, symbols, trademarks, methods, and architectural styles. A uniform sign is prominently displayed.

The success of fast-food restaurants depends on large-scale mobility: People who travel or move to another city immediately recognize a familiar place. To both local residents and travelers, the local franchise is immediately recognizable as part of a national or multinational company. Visitors can be confident that the restaurant will reflect familiar values of international popular culture rather than strange and potentially uncomfortable local customs.

Physical expression of uniformity in popular culture has diffused from North America to other parts of the world. American motels and fast-food chains have opened in other countries. These establishments appeal to North American travelers, yet most customers are local residents who wish to sample American customs they have seen on television. Some critics view expansion by American retail businesses as a form of cultural imperialism.

Pause & Reflect 4.4.2

Roughly what percentage of businesses at your local mall are franchises? What are the main differences between the franchises and the independent businesses?

Golf

Popular culture can pollute the landscape by modifying it with little regard for local environmental conditions, such as climate and soil. To create a uniform landscape, hills may be flattened and valleys filled in. The same building and landscaping materials may be employed regardless of location. Features such as golf courses consume large quantities of land and water; non-native grass species are planted, and fertilizers and pesticides are laid on the grass to ensure an appearance considered suitable for the game

Uniform Landscape

Golf course in the Namib Desert, Swakopmund, Namibia.

Golf courses, because of their large size (80 hectares, or 200 acres), provide a prominent example of imposing popular culture on the environment. A surge in U.S. golf popularity spawned construction of several hundred courses during the late twentieth century. Geographer John Rooney attributed this to increased income and leisure time, especially among recently retired older people and younger people with flexible working hours. This trend slowed during the first decade of the twenty-first century.

The distribution of golf courses is not uniform across the United States. Although golf is perceived as a warm-weather sport, the number of golf courses per person is actually greatest in north-central states. People in these regions have a long tradition of playing golf, and social clubs with golf courses are important institutions in the fabric of the regions’ popular customs.

Golf Courses

The highest concentration of golf courses is in the upper Midwest.

Golf courses are designed partially in response to local physical conditions. Grass species are selected to thrive in the local climate and still be suitable for the needs of greens, fairways, and roughs. Existing trees and native vegetation are retained if possible. (Few fairways in Michigan are lined with palms.) Yet, as with other popular customs, golf courses remake the environment—creating or flattening hills, cutting grass or letting it grow tall, carting in or digging up sand for traps, and draining or expanding bodies of water to create hazards and maintain the course.