www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/121
James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life -- the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Reengineering our cities will involve more radical change than we are prepared for, he believes, but our hand will be forced by earth crises stemming from our overconsuming lifestyle. "Life in the mid-21st century," Kunstler says, "is going to be about living locally." Passionate, profane and funny, this talk will make you think about the place where you live. About James Howard Kunstler James Howard Kunstler may be the world's most outspoken critic of suburban sprawl.
We have been trying for the last 20 years to get back what we had 50 years ago. It is amazing how quickly we can tear things down and how hard it is to build them back up. Much like the role of exercise in our obesity issue - but that's a whole other talk. Contributing to the fabric of neighborhoods which then contribute to the larger community. This is often difficult to do with codes, laws and and the low expectations of the people who hire us - but not impossible or unachievable. I've read Kunstler and now have heard him - and I still agree with him. Regardless of his delivery, the underlying message is valid. This man man has SOME interesting points but some rough ideas too. His delivery is quite unpleasant, and somebody should have told him that you don't need to shout into those microphones. His vision did seem retrospective rather than forward thinking and from the glimpses I got i didn't think his proffered alternatives looked like huge improvements on some of the failures.. he didn't take the real urban growth into consideration at all which is the explosion of slum settlement. Not a derisive term and not what most of us think either but some estimates put 1/3 of the world population in swelling shanty cities very soon with little to no large scale planning at all. Walmart just cut there energy use by something like 20% i think by painting all their roofs white, converting their fleet to bio-diesel and sealing their refrigerated areas in separate rooms. If every business and individual follows suit in one move we would achieve a lot. Big businesses are here to stay and they are not our enemies. We created them by using them and the biggest ones got that way by providing people with what they want. When people en masse make it clear with their choices that they want beautiful rich environments to truly live then then we have a beginning * Kerwin Datu - January 27 2008 I agree very much with James Kunstler's view, but am very concerned about his delivery. It is quite abrasive, and will easily put people offside, as Michael Sponhour has been. To answer Michael's concerns, I'd like to reiterate that the suburban dream developed in response to the pollution and filth of nineteenth century cities, not as a rejection of cities per se. The planners who invented and developed the suburban model explicitly recognised the social value of cities and sought an amalgam of the best of city and country. The Walmart warehouse does not provide the social core that a city provides, nor does it provide the natural landscape setting of the country. Real urban centres (as opposed to chic consumerist places) are not about the urban hipster lifestyle. As an architect who has travelled a lot in regional France, Italy and Spain, urban centres are the lifeblood of even the smallest towns, and whatever the demographic of the area, they are a gathering place for whole families and their children, for old retirees, for businessmen. In such towns they give public expression to and strenghten the traditional values of these communities and families, just as much as they provide lifestyle opportunities for the upwardly mobile. I can promise you that mothers with kids need a stroll and a coffee as much as any hipster, and for their prams the wider the sidewalks the better. Urban cores are not high cost and are not absent from poorer communities. They are economically self supporting in that they simply match the economy of their area - the coffees cost less because the rents are lower. They provide a collective face for the struggles in these communities, make visible the forgotten people, buffer them from social isolation, provide a place where they can come into contact with greater opportunities. Anyone can sit on a bench in an urban square and feel part of a society without forking out so much as a dime. The same can't be said for their consumerist simulacra, where such people will be shuffled along by private security guards. As for Paris, my home for the last three years, the "riots" and "ghettos" of which Michael speaks, the working class and immigrant communities, have not been pushed to the outer ring - they are in the urban centre, to the east and north of the monumental core of the city, and in the inner ring of suburbs. They are there because the jobs are there and the public transport is there. They can't much afford cars or freestanding houses, but they enjoy their wine and cheese shops, their cafes and their strolls, as much as the college kids and the bourgeoisie. The urban core is assimilator as much as it is cosmopolitain. Paris' downtown areas, the poor and the wealthy sides alike, are both filled with children and babies - they are very safe places for them. The average suburbanite of France still has their urban square with their regular produce market, bakery, hairdresser, cheese shops, cafes; they don't call it lifestyle, they just call it normal life. They can buy everything they need from one place, but it is not a windowless warehouse. They have trees, gardens, parks, all those things that suburbia should offer people, but they are not a band-aid to social alienation and isolation. They have the services of the city built right within their communities, without the hectic pace. There is not one type of urbanism to be imposed on all people. However, there are many types of urban centres, suitable to different paces of life, which do have benefits for all people. Urban cores are required as a complement to healthy suburban districts. Even the sleepiest town needs one corner where people can prop themselves up outside a bar and share their thoughts with their fellow citizens. I agree with the posters who stated that suburbia is freedom. I now life in a house and feel safe and free when I go home at night. For six years I lived in an apartment complex in a city and this was the worst time of my life. Having to worry about other people all the time caused me a massive amount of stress. I had nightmares every night of getting robbed and having my pets stolen from me. To me the most relaxing thing is to come home and be with my husband and pets and forget about all of my problems. It's not that I hate people, I actually think that people are generally good, but the more I am around people the more stressed I become. To me living in a city for the rest of my life is the definition of hell. I have long had a dream of owning a farm and living off the land. Suburbia to me is somewhere in between these two things. I can deal with suburbia, to me large cities are too busy and far too stressful. I believe that the people who push for "urban city living" the hardest are extroverts who love being around other people. I have respect for their choices but it is too bad that they can't realize not everyone is like them and they want to force others to have their ideals and in doing so they wish to steal freedom from others. I wonder how the project of making our society more beautiful is accomplished by basically showing contempt for everyone who does not live a groovey urban hipster lifestyle, which is basically what Kunstler is arguing for. The most fundamental question here is who is going to pay for these grand dreams? Without fail, the communities that exhibit his prefrerred style are high cost and out of reach for people of modest incomes or those striving to raise families. If everyone wanted to stroll along wide sidewalks and sip lattes at a cafe, I am confi...
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