Is this what the "end of suburbia looks like"?

gwmss15

This is a series of images taken while on a bus photographing trip last weekend. I came across the very run down housing estate just 100 meters from the bus terminal of route 142.

It seems this place was ones a nice and modern housing estate at some point but something went wrong and it became very run down with zero upkeep and a change for residents. who now use the old empty homes as there homes and businesses.

Is this the future for the USA that is happening right now on the edge of Bangkok city Thailand? About 35 km from the inner city.

Maybe this give an insight into the post peak future that some people talk about. I can get more images from this area if people are interested.

Ferretlover

mos6507

I think what makes places like this look worse than it has to be is the trash floating around. It makes me wonder what we'll do about diesel garbage trucks.
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jlw61

I would not discount it happening here. In fact, there's ample evidence that it could and had I thought about it, I could have taken some lovely pictures showing a US community headed in that direction... I'll try to remember to take pictures the next time I drive through SW Virginia.
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seahorse2 · Expert Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1916

Those can't be pictures of a post peak world for those are pictures of a world, quite possibly at its zenith. If those are pictures of anything, they will be pictures of "the good old days."

midnight-gamer

Looks normal to me. Shanty towns next to expensive homes and business is par for the course.

gwmss15

Well this is fairly common in my part of the world. But what made this one different is that this "Village" as the Thais call them was made out of an abandoned middle class housing complex. Not all that different to others in the area.

I didn't go deep inside to explore as it was half flooded and i didn't have time. So i took some pictures near the front of it and posted them on here to show if this is what some people feel is post peak oil suburbia.

In Thailand its very common to see a 30 story upper class condo next to a lower class village. The two groups of people walk past each other on the main road without even thinking about it. Often the middle class will share the bus with lower class poor people.

Thailand doesn't really call it upper middle and lower class but its the easiest way to describe it.

In Australia this type of village is very rare in fact i cannot think of any place like this in Melbourne.

The largest of these "Villages" is klong toei. It is home to over 400000 people and places great strain on the local mass transport system.

efarmer · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 17, 2006 Posts: 487

I like to look at the up side of life. I am planning to make the
best wheelbarrow in my neck of the woods. I am going to
make the body out of a Hummer hood that is lovingly hand
hammered into shape with the head of a concrete lantern
boy from the end of an estate driveway. It will have an
alloy wheel from an Escalade and the lavishly padded
handles from a Georgia Chopper mower. I am considering
putting some Naugahyde on the outside of the Hummer
hood / barrow bucket so that all will know that efarmer
gots class and is the only dude in the hood with a
Landau bottom on his wheelbarrow cruise.

I can't wait for all the garden babes to see me sportin'
my new wheel, I will make sure to rub some lemon balm
on my pits so I smell the part of the cool dude as well.

efarmer

pstarr

'Is this what the "end of suburbia looks like?"

Not really. Those are just pictures of another ex-colonial sh*thole milked and wrung dry by Europeans for hundreds of years.

And then left to stew in it's own crap.
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ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap wav

IslandCrow

pstarr

MarkJ · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 25, 2008 Posts: 180

We don't see many structures like that in my area of the Northeast due to sub zero temperatures, snow, ice, zoning laws, building/safety/fire/mechanical codes, blight laws, occupancy laws, code enforcement etc.

The vast majority of homes in really bad shape aren't town, village, suburban, rural or exburban homes, but older run-down or abandoned city homes in very bad sections of cities with poor code/blight enforcement, low property values, subsidized housing, slum landlords, high crime rates, poor job markets, high property taxes, poor school systems and limited tax base growth.

These areas don't have budgets, grants and other funding necessary to demolish and/or rebuild bad sections, plus local developers and builders generally build outside the cities on large undeveloped building lots, acreage or farmland.

Serial_Worrier · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 05, 2008 Posts: 233

Slumland USA! Twisted Evil

timmac · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 27, 2008 Posts: 190

Its looks normal to me,, when I was in Thailand 1980-81 I saw the same thing then,, nice big house's behind tall white walls and next door tin shacks,, show me somthing in a mordern country like Europe or USA but not from a 3rd world country, I been to pleanty 3rd worlds and seen the same thing over and over, it's normal there but not here as of yet........