Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 47072
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2025/05/28 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/28    

2007/6/26-28 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47072 Activity:high
6/26    I've just found the ideal peice of motd trollbait, combining peak oil
        with "the suburbs suck."  Truly gaze upon it, for it is a thing of
        beauty.
        http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/06/peak-suburbia.html
        \_ What the hell is this guy proposing? That we all cram into the
           city? This is highly unfeasible because our cities have evolved
           to be a working city rather than a living city, and it simply
           cannot scale to a level that'll hold dense population like
           Tokyo or NYC. Look, 30% of the energy in the US is spent on
           transportation, and by cramming into the city we'll maybe save
           1/2 of that, reducing the consumption by maybe 15% overall.
           That is not enough to save the mankind from Kuntler's doomsday.
           Regardless of his proposals, there will still be huge energy
           hogs in sectors like manufacturing and electric generation.
           What is this nutso going to propose next, that the government
           mandate strict manufacturing laws and that we have a ration
           for iPods and computer usage? This is all silly.
           \_ It's more than just transportation usage.  Cities are much
              more energy efficient in other ways as well.  For instance look
              at that retail space/person chart.  All these suburban sprawls
              include a ton of infrastructure that isn't as wasteful in
              dense areas.  (The waste is possible in suburbia for the same
              reason the overbuilt homes are possible, land is dirt cheap.)
              \_ Is is also "possible" because the people doing the wasting
                 shift the cost onto others. Does electricity cost more in
                 in the suburbs? No? Who do you think pays the increased cost
                 of delivery that all that extra infrastructure requires?
                 Same goes for water, roads and a host of other things.
                 \_ I'm just saying it isn't transportation energy alone.
                    Building shit costs energy.  Making raw materials takes
                    energy.  Outter suburbia is a system that works because
                    energy is so damn cheap that the wasted energy use is
                    insignificant compared to how damn cheap the land is.
                    \_ Sure, but it also works because it is subsidised.
           \_ He's proposing urban redesign, restting zoning to make sense, and
              making cities places where people actually want to live. His
              Home from Nowhere covers this.
              \_ Good luck convincing the Americans that Kuntler's
                 Utopia is good for Americans.
                 \_ Kunstler's ideas have been embraced by some communities.
                    Often, it's the developers, not the residents or potential
                    residents who oppose the Urban Renewal movement.
                    \_ Kuntler's Utopia-> dense shared living-> government
                       control of land usage -> anti-free market ->
                       communism. Therefore Kuntler is a communist.
                       Communist = bad. Kuntler = bad.          -capitalist
                       \_ Your reasoning -> absolute deregulation -> free
                          market without conscience -> reinstitution of
                          indentured servitude, debtors prisons -> robber
                          barons and industrial age imperialist rape ->
                          sale of Universities to highest bidder -> closing of
                          csua -> no more motd. Therefore, you hate America.
                          Why do you hate America?
                       \_ "dense shared living -> gov't control" doesn't really
                          follow at all. See SF, NY, condos, etc. Gov't always
                          "controls land usage" in some way, zoning etc.
                 \_ Some of the scariest totalitarian minds I have seen work
                    as urban designers in Europe somewhere.  There was this
                    one clown who advocated diversity and change in political
                    order as the ultimate good to redesign societies towards.
                    As in, having democracies everywhere is bad because it
                    creates a political monoculture.  Instead, we must have
                    a lot of exciting mad social experiments.  --- ilyas
                    a lot of exciting mad political experiments.  --- ilyas
        \_ Wasn't that done in the CSUA motd?
        \_ truely awesome.
        \_ No one is going to pay attention to this article because it doesn't
           have a happy Hollywood ending. Sorry.
        \_ Wow. Can we give this guy a CSUA account?
        \_ I always like his buzzwords like Cheez Doodle based economy, which
           was inspired when he was sitting behind some grossly obese family
           who were trying to buy Cheez Doodles and had maxed out all of their
           credit cards.
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5/28    

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jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/06/peak-suburbia.html
Main Peak Suburbia June 25, 2007 I get lots of letters from people in various corners of the nation who are hysterically disturbed by the continuing spectacle of suburban development. But instead of joining in their hand-wringing, I reply by stating my serene conviction that we are at the end of the cycle -- and by that I mean the grand meta-cycle of the suburban project as a whole. Whatever you see out there now is pretty much what we're going to be stuck with. The remaining things under construction are the last twitchings of a dying organism. It is not an accident that the housing bubble coincided with the phenomenon of Peak Oil. First of all, the housing bubble should more properly be called the suburban bubble, because most of the activity came in the form of "greenfield" housing subdivisions, and included all the additional crap-o-la accessories required by them -- strip malls, power centers, Outback steak houses, car washes, et cetera. The suburban expansion has been based entirely on cheap-and-abundant supplies of oil. Similarly, it was not an accident that the suburban project faltered briefly in the 1970s, when America's oil production entered its long decline, OPEC seized the moment, and oil prices shot up. Notice that the final suburban blowout occurred after 1990, when the North Sea and Prudhoe Bay oil strikes came into full production, disabling OPEC, and a world oil glut finally drove prices as low as ten dollars a barrel in 1999. That ushered in the climactic phase of suburbia, as represented by things like the standard 4000-square-foot Toll Brother's McMansion and the heyday of the super-gigantic SUV to go with it. The bottom is falling out under not only the housing market (as in houses up for sale) but on the whole apparatus for delivering future houses, and the car-oriented crap associated with it. The production home-builders, such as Toll Brothers, Hovanian, Pulte, et cetera are going down and they will not be coming back. There will be a great deal of wishing that they might come back, but they won't. Likewise, the commercial builders of all the various forms of suburban retail will be waiting to "turn the corner." But they will discover that the wall they have hit has no corner. Mags_diary21_retail_graph_2 Those of you considering the purchase of more WalMart stock, take note. Some years back, when those watching the oil scene began to coalesce in their recognition that a worldwide production peak was imminent and hugely significant, the concept developed that this peak would take the form of a "bumpy plateau," meaning that supply-and-demand would teeter in an uncomfortable relationship for a period of time as markets and economies adjusted to the new reality by oscillating from higher prices to "demand destruction" to recession to recovery to higher prices, and so forth. This was expected to go on for quite a while before the world really headed into a slow permanent decline. com, suggests that something else is happening, something that was not anticipated: an imminent oil export crisis. This Export Land Theory states that exporting nations will have far less oil available for export than was previously assumed under older models. For example, The UK's portion of the North Sea oil fields may be showing a nine percent annual decline for the past couple of years. Something similar is in store for Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Venezuela -- in short, the whole cast of characters in the export world. They are all producing less and they are all using more of their own oil, and have less to send elsewhere. Brown's math suggests that world oil exports will drop by 50 percent within the next five years, certainly enough to trigger a systemic breakdown in market allocation, meaning serious supply shortages among the importing nations. The implication in all this is that the activities that have become "normal" for us during the post World War Two era will very shortly become untenable. An economy based on suburban expansion and incessant motoring is on the top of the list of supposedly "normal" activities that will not be able to continue. I would maintain that even if we had 20 years, no combination of bio-fuels and other alternatives would enable us to keep suburbia running. But this latest work indicates that we have much less time to adjust. This new information is consistent with my view that we had better prepare to make other arrangements for living in this country, by which I mean specifically re-localizing, de-globalizing, with an emphasis on local agriculture wherever possible, the emergency restoration of passenger railroad service and related modes of public transit, the rebuilding of local commercial infrastructures, and a radical rethinking of how we inhabit the landscape under New Urbanist lines. Perhaps the most imminent danger is that the financial markets, which have been driving our insane, hollowed-out economy, will soon recognize what's in store and implode, creating a crisis of capital that will leave us with no ability to make any emergency investments, such as would be required to rebuild the railroad system. The equity markets sure blinked last week when two hedge funds based on phony-baloney collateralized debt obligations tanked. The collateral underlying this load of hallucinated "wealth" is comprised of contracts made by the insolvent for suburban houses worth far less than the value stated on the contracts -- with every indication that the real value will keep dropping. In any case, those who keep wringing their hands over the bulldozers leveling the plots of prairie, or cornfield, or desert -- those distressed folks can direct their anxiety elsewhere. Worry less whether one final strip mall will tilt up out in gloaming, and think harder about how you are going to feed yourself and your family in a couple of years when the stupendous motorized moloch of American life begins to sputter, and the Cheez Doodle shipments can no longer make it to your supermarket shelves, and all that is "normal" melts into air. June 25, 2007 at 08:42 AM Like the analysis comparing oil prices to democracy, I like the underlying thesis: "you think that you're in control of your destiny." The concept that the urban projects of the seventies were an outgrowth of a sort of group think is appealing, in that many people are currently attempting to make their own markets and goods in interesting ways. The article in the NYT talking about the Renegade Craft Fair is relevant. This is a long way from localized production, but people begin by doing in small experimental ways, and transfer knowledge to the periphery. How we wish somebody had the guts to discuss the measly Amtrack subsidies compared with our support of air travel, and wouldn't it be nice if some mayors got together to discuss intercity travel in a more cohesive manner. How about intercity business development and relocation assistance? I don't think that globalism is going away however, no matter how expensive travel or products become. Fifty miles outside of the urban areas however, is going to seem like a world away... June 25, 2007 at 08:44 AM The retail space chart is absolutely amazing. That's a lot of merchandise to sell to people who have no money except for borrowed money. I have been one of those agonizers for some 35 years as my haunts for hiking, swimming, simply enjoying the landscape of my region has been bulldozed, subdivided, mined and made land fills again and again. It has broken my heart so many times I have learned to avert my eyes out of a need to remain sane. I have foght this shit in my own way for many years but the "Growth is good !" crowd owns the pols and guys like me are dismissed as passionate idealist (at first) then tree huggers, the radicals and gets worse-simply wackos or commies (which are one and the same thing in the eyes of the elites) Oh well I hope it happens quick and with as anger at the jerks that got us here as possible. At 55 and knowing of your age it is heartening in this Zombie Nation of ours ! I especially like the specifics given regarding the possible declines in exports across 5 years. The real decline in U...