My favorite story in the joint was "Home Economics" about Harvard whiz Edward L. Glaeser, 38, "a genius" urban theorist, who sports bespoke English suits (with watch-fobs!) and who has managed to construct a comprehensive view of how we live in America without factoring in the global energy predicament. Apparently Glaeser's major contribution to the field is the arresting idea that whatever has been happening out there in America will certainly continue to happen --exactly in the Irving Fisher tradition. For instance, people have been moving to the Sunbelt for sixty years because there's no winter there to hassle with, so that trend will continue. Also, suburban sprawl is just fine, no problem, let's get more of it up-and-running. (Glaeser's theory is related to Times columnist David Brooks's incisive formulation that suburbia must be okay because the public seems to like it.)....
What these pimps and geniuses don't get is that America's future is all about discontinuity. Virtually everything you see out there will not keep going. We will discontinue granting interest only, adjustable rate mortgage loans for half-million-dollar McHouses to schlemiels one paycheck away from bankruptcy -- because the practice will prove to be reckless and ruinous not only for the schlemiels, but for the financial system as a whole. Americans will stop moving to the Sunbelt when they discover what life is really like in Phoenix and Houston without cheap air conditioning. After the suburbs implode financially from a pandemic of defaulted mortgages, we will see how well they operate on $5-a-gallon gasoline (or higher), and how carefree it is to heat a 4000-square-foot McHouse in a permanent natural gas crisis. We'll also discover that telecommuting over the Internet is not so "cool" in brownout nation.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Motoring towards being sprawled out on the bathroom floor with an empty bottle of valium
Jim Kunstler.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
You had me until you mentioned the price of heating in the suburbs of Phoenix and Houston. But I think I understand you.
So perhaps the answer is to produce power (electricity) more cheaply and, ideally, from renewable sources, or at least from large new modernized nuclear plants.
Sufficient electricity would allow the production of Hydrogen or Methanol for fuel cells to serve our transportation needs in both rural and urban areas.
As to the credit crisis, that will continue as long as there is money to lend. McMansions are financed by funds generated from the more populous east and west where space is at a premium and house prices are orders of magnitude higher. This applies to both the newer areas of the sunbelt and the slowly growing midwest where prices have not risen.
Large homes in these areas are built to avoid the capital gains taxes that result from the sale of higher dollar smaller homes where land prices are more dear.
Home sizes could be reduced if this extra cash didn't have to be rolled over into a new larger house.
I presume you would prefer everyone outside agricultural communities live in high-density urban settings closer to their places of employment.
However, your position on telecommuting puzzles me. The carbon load even from a conventually fueled powerplant is far less than either internal combution engine or mass transit.
Further if we pursue sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar the population would be dispersed for the efficiency of living near the power source rather than lose energy by transmitting electricity to large urban centers.
I suspect that dividing large urban areas into smaller self-contained districts may be the better way to go. That way neoghborhood cohesion could be maintained and inefficient travel between a living district and a working district could be eliminated.
Telecommuting could help minimize travel and pollution associated with sprawling bedroom communities located to far from work centers.
In such a system travel between districts would be for pleasure or for unique services not present in the worker's home district.
For example, a smaller unit say 10,000 people modelled on a small town with shopping, workspaces, and higher density living near these services and lower density home sites within 15 minutes walking distance of the town center. Smaller smarter production facilities could be built nearest the local power plant solar, wind, or green hydro.
Large scale facilities where production identical items is still more efficient, could be located between four or more districts such as an aircraft or auto (fuel-cell or compressed air or electic) production plant.
NO VALIUM REQUIRED!
Post a Comment