Question about Kunstler position

zeke · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 07, 2007 Posts: 174

I read The Long Emergency in the Summer of 2005 and earned a few worry lines and sleepless nights doing it.

One thing that's nagging me in terms of what I feel is a contradiction is this:

Kunstler says that the suburbs represent waste, bad planning, bad use of resources. No argument there.

He says that Cities are better for their centralization; you can live AND work there. No argument there, either.

Kunstler says that when the @#%!% Hits the fan, cities will empty out because you can't grow food there, nor can cities be safely operated without cheap energy. I can certainly see that point

He also says that when the same @&^%# hits the fan, the suburbs will be no good, either. energy too tight, can't maintain the spread-out non-functional burbs. I can see that point.

So, I'm left with this question: where, other than Walton's Mountain, will be any good to be??

For all their stupidity, could you say that, at least there are lawns in the suburbs which can be converted to vegetable gardens? Cities are not known for their food-growing spaces....lots of pavement and buildings, not so much on the garden space.

Kunstler says that dwinding cheap energy supplies will force us to "make other arrangements," including growing our own food, and that points to the suburbs way more than it does to the cities...a cheeseburger could appreciate that idea.

Maybe there's a part of his discussion which I'm forgetting, but I'd appreciate comments from anyone wanting to discuss this.

thank you!

zeke
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Tyler_JC

Kunstler was a theater major and then a failed writer before he discovered Y2K and Peak Oil.

Now he's still clueless but with a few decent selling books to his name.

Overall, he's more of an entertainer than a scientist.

His opinions should not be put on the same level as the opinions of people like Dr. Smalley, Dr. Hubbert, or Dr. Bartlett.

Richard Heinberg is a good source of information too because he is a journalist with some level of integrity.

Kunstler doesn't pretend to have integrity. Read some of the garbage he wrote about Y2K before you base your life around Kunstler's theories.

Alternatively, read what he wanted to do to the world's Muslim populations after 9/11. I'll give you a hint, it would have made Hitler blush.

I know I'm going to get a response that says, "but you can't shoot the messenger!"

You can shoot the messenger when he's a raving lunatic making up stuff and contradicting himself on a monthly basis.

As an architectural critique or fiction writer, he's fine. But when he starts talking about natural gas furnaces exploding if the gas gets shut off and then restarted again...watch out.
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Ayoob · Expert Joined: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 1038

You should see what he had to say about Israel, too. My opinion of him changed a little after I read that stuff.

cube · Fusion Joined: Mar 12, 2005 Posts: 3381

I'm getting confused here. There seems to be a logical contradiction.
On one hand there is a universal agreement that cities are more "energy efficient" because everything is packed together closer making transport cheaper. You can have high ridership bus routes and trains in cities but NOT in suburbs or the farm.

Now comes PO and some people start saying things like, We're going to move out of the cities because you can't grow food there. It takes long distance transport to send food from the farm to the city.

Folks, I thought we just agreed 2 minutes ago that cities were more "efficient". So now we have to move out of it? Confused

zeke · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 07, 2007 Posts: 174

I think the thing about "cities" is the density and ease of getting around, not that, say, New York City would be an example of the ideal.

But, "city" in the sense of "centralized easy-to-get-around hub of activity, not so spread out as to be unwieldy, and near a place where food can be grown."

neither burb nor modern city fit that description, really. I'd rather be able too grow vegetables in my former lawn, but the way the burbs are spread out, it'd be tough dealing with the isolation...

then again, perhaps suburban neighborhoods would form into their own little mini-burgs?

yeah, kunstler has a flair for the dramatic, but his major points (or ones he cites) seem to coincide with the larger body of thought and information on this topic.

zeke
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seldom_seen · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Apr 12, 2005 Posts: 1950

Kunstler isn't a propeller head crunching numbers in an excel spreadsheet. We have plenty of those, and the oildrum is a good place to get the latest technical analysis regarding peak oil.

Kunstler fills a different niche. He provides social commentary as well as basically using his imagination to extrapolate current trends in to the future. He does all this while being a gifted writer. Some of the sentences that man has strung together are classics.

Anyone who makes predictions about the future, and comes up with not so rosy conclusions is bound to be skewered. If any of those predictions are wrong he is bound to be skewered, roasted, battered and deep fried by those who take offense to anyone who tells them that they won't be living in domed cities with flying cars and eating a pill for dinner that tastes like a meal of steak and lobster (on mars).

Look at Malthus. That poor man has been ridiculed and belittled and laughed at for over a century. The motherfcker was right though! Just open the paper tomorrow morning and half the stories will prove his position.

hironegro · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 08, 2008 Posts: 270

Not only are his claims about Y2K completely ridiculous, but the dude thought OIF was the rational thing to do.

He's like Juno of the peak oil community. In that he's really witty, but in reality he's just style over substances.

TonyPrep

TonyPrep

kokoda · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2006 Posts: 420

I definitely recommend Dr Bartlett

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

Fredrik

Kunstler deserves a mention in history books if only for the adage "Suburbia is the biggest misallocation of resources in human history" that he made popular.

Kunstler is a big fan of traditional 19th century small towns. His latest novel, whose events are located in upstate New York, describes a kind of return to that sort of community. But he's painfully aware of how little small town landscape remains in America physically and culturally.

As already suggested, suburbanites will probably concentrate on specific spots in sprawl areas. Two or three families might live in a McMansion in a populated area and the emptied suburban "hinterlands" could be used for gardening while the houses are stripped for materials and firewood.
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emersonbiggins

Transit and small towns are not mutually exclusive. Many towns (I can speak for those in TX, OK) had streetcar lines that ran right from the center of town & the train station out to the periphery (usually, the new "country" club) - basically, a land development mechanism. In an energy starved world, it's not hard to see something like this phenomenon reemerging for transiting workers and consumers to/from the farming areas and back.

Turn-of-the-century in Ames, IA:

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zeke · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 07, 2007 Posts: 174

Very, very true!

In fact, the little town where we live used to be a streetcar/interurban hub of sorts as it supplied timber and other commodities to the major city 20 miles from here. there's still a stretch of trolley tracks but it's pretty lumpy and I think there are plans to rip it out in favor of more "development."

As another person commented here, computers and the internet make possible telecommuting, which could give a best of both worlds scenario: eliminate cars, enable people to work, and to do so in an area where there's the *opportunity* to grow food.

problem is, these "developers" are leaving not one stick or stone un"developed," and arable land is vanishing pretty quickly.

and it wouldn't be so bad if the construction were decent, but it's all vinyl, glue, chipboard and staplegunned together...I wouldn't give you a stick of chewing gum for the whole lot of them.

zeke
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Ludi

emersonbiggins

I'm hoping against hope, Ludi.
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