Things living in active use in changing conditions usually cause admiration. The street network in the centers of many European cities is still operated by the Romans today. In Europe, rural districts have been preserved, the stability of which can be traced for at least a thousand years. The layout of New York was once motivated by the fact that it would be able to withstand significant changes in the placement of activities, and in this regard it justified itself. The regular grid of the drives and the modality of the structures of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provide the opportunity to continuously rebuild the connections of laboratories, training premises and offices in the exact correspondence of the design program (and in the noise of almost continuous construction). But what are valuable cases of sustainability? Physical stability, of course, helps us to realize our past, but whether it gives anything else?
In addition to the fact that this is a guideline in history, the stability of the object form has value only if it cannot be reproduced with lower costs than the costs necessary for its maintenance. In other words, stability is valuable if it allows people to do what they need for a smaller amount than the one that would be required for new construction. In any other case, the stability of the thing will certainly turn into the fact that the environment exerts an increasing pressure on the type of activity, on the form of behavior. In principle, the environment, in which things do not live for a long time, is quickly replaced by others, has the greatest degree of adaptability.
The territories of the United States and the American society itself possessed such high flexibility. The vastness of the Earth and the lack of feudal ownership of it, the structure of the capitalist economy and social institutions – all here contributed to the continuous flow of labor and capital, accelerated the consumption of things and the social preference of personal ability to quickly adapt to new situations. This mobility, we note, was paid by a fairly high price: the instability of social ties, the lack of communication with the past. The adaptability to fast -flowing changes was ensured, in particular, accelerated depletion of resources. However, ultimately, this determines the loss of the ability to adapt to long -term changes.