Kunstler talks about the prospects for New Urbanism + looming energy crisis

[Tosspot]

From Jim Kunstler's Monday morning blog entry

June 5, 2006
    The New Urbanists met for their annual confab in Providence over the weekend and I was there among them, as I have been for thirteen years, because there is no other organization in America that is doing more to remediate the fiasco of suburbia -- or, as I call it, the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. I have been telling college lecture audiences for a while now that pretty soon the only urbanism will be the New Urbanism. I am not being facetious.
    This movement has been broadly misunderstood over the past decade, especially by some of the major morons in the mainstream media, such as David Brooks and John Tierney of The New York Times, who repeatedly make the fatuous argument that suburbia must be okay because Americans overwhelmingly choose to live in it. Well, that's nice. The trouble, though David and John, is that suburbia is coming off the menu. In a world of $70 oil and upward, suburbia is a dish that can no longer be served up in America's economic kitchen. Someone should inform the waiters.
    The New Urbanists were first among the entire architecture-and-planning establishment to volunteer to help in the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and they have received nothing but scorn and ingratitude for proposing that the Gulf Coast towns be redeveloped as something other than parking lots with casinos, or that FEMA learn how to deliver a well-designed small cottage instead of a trailer to people who have lost their homes. The minions of the elite architecture schools, lead by Reed Kroloff of Tulane University, have been especially dismissive, proposing instead architectural exercises in irony and High Art -- just what people living in tents with no plumbing need.
    The New Urbanists are the only group I know of who offer a comprehensive set of intelligent responses to the awful challenges we face in a looming mega crisis of the environment. Assuming that the human race wants to carry on, and to do so under civilized conditions, we are going to need collective dwelling places, civic habitations. It has yet to be determined what scale will be possible, and exactly what kind of energy will be available to us for running them. But the signs so far indicate that the scale will have to be much more modest than what we are currently used to, and the quality will have to be much higher.
    The New Urbanists performed an extremely valuable service to this society over the past decade. They dove back into the dumpster of history and retrieved the knowledge needed for the design and assembly of real civic environments -- knowledge that had been thrown away gleefully by the traffic engineers and municipal Babbitts in the delirious years of building the easy motoring utopia.
    One day soon, America will wake up from its infotainment-fueled sleepwalk and start desperately looking for answers to the predicament it finds itself in. A lot of that will revolve around the basic question of where we live, and how things in it are arranged. When that wake-up occurs, the New Urbanists will be ready, reliable, confident, and congenial as always -- something like our country used to be.

[bahua]

I have heard a lot of this sentiment. That urbanism is good because it's responsible. That cars are bad because they aren't sustainable or clean.

I think a greater ill is not being addressed. I am certainly against iressponsible development, and damaging the environment. But what if 15'-wide pickup trucks could burn clean fuel and exhaust an aroma of fresh-cut roses, and massive 20K sq ft plaster castles could still be built on the edge of oblivion with no environmental impact, and in a sustainable manner? It would still not be happy. These things encourage a lifestyle of keeping us isolated from each other. It encourages us to eschew actual human contact, in favor of banal, stupid bullshit on the television coupled with a life of no exercise.

Cities bring people together, and though they may be more environmentally responsible, that's not why I favor them over any other living arrangement. I favor cities because our civilization depends on them.

[aknowledgeableperson]

To bad, in order to make himself feel better, he has to use the word "moron".  And $70 a barrel does not mean the end of suburbia.  As the price of oil increases alternative energy sources will be found/used.  Auto gas mileage will increase in the long run.  Energy users will be more efficient (see new efficiency standards for air conditioners and other home appliances.

How many 15' wide pickups are there?  Long maybe, but wide.  And in reality how many 20K sq ft homes are built?  You are using extremes but you should be more realistic.  And I think you still refuse to accept that many who are in suburbia are happy, extremely happy. 

Density will not prevent isolation.  Human contact is still around, just in different forms than in the past and that will not change.  Unless, of course, you get rid of home computers, video games, and cable TV, big screen TV's, air conditioners, among other similiar things.

[riebschlager]

on kunstler:  i often think he lets his disdain of suburbs color his writing a little too much.  one thing that leaves a really bad taste in my mouth is when folks in the peak oil camp seem to be cheerleaders for economic collapse.  but i'll try not to go off on a rant...

i don't think this quite deserves it's own thread, but it might fit here.  (lord knows we need more oil threads) anyhoo, it's rob newman's performance "the history of oil" this guy is amazingly funny and incredibly smart.  so if you have about 45 minutes to burn today, check it out.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2978336967