Anonymization: The Global Proliferation of Urban Sprawl is a photographic exhibition and book project by Robert Harding Pittman.

All across the world a uniform, homogeneous model of development, inspired by Los Angeles style urban sprawl – consisting of massive freeways, parking lots, shopping malls and large-scale master-planned communities with golf courses – is being stamped onto the earth’s topography. With this anonymous type of development comes the destruction of the environment, and also a loss of culture and roots, as well as alienation.

This globalized model of architecture does not respect or adapt itself to the natural or cultural environment onto which it is implanted. As we have seen in recent history, fervent overdevelopment has led to crises, not only financial, but also environmental and social, and some even say psychological.

German-American photographer Robert Harding Pittman began working on this project on the global proliferation of urban sprawl in Los Angeles over ten years ago. Since then he has been traveling around the world photographing the spread of “L.A. style development” in Las Vegas, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Dubai and South Korea. The world was in the midst of a construction boom when the project began. In the meantime most cranes have come to a screeching halt.

The book ANONYMIZATION, published by Kehrer Verlag, was nominated for the German Photobook Award (Deutscher Fotobuchpreis). Writers for the book are curator Alison Nordström, environmentalist Bill McKibben, architect Galina Tachieva and sociologist Anette Baldauf. The book is a carbon neutral print production. The project was also nominated for the Prix Pictet 2014.