Suburbia, and an author you should know...

Oil. Cars. Surburbia. Our future. They're connected. And one who joins the chorus of souls who strongly understand and cry about this connection is author James Howard Kunstler. In The Long Emergency (c. 2005), Kunstler tells us that despite our denial, the days of cheap and easy-to-get oil are over, baby, and the tough days are about to begin. Of course, the damage we've wreaked on our society and planet have been in the making for a while. Global warming. Asphalt jungles. You've heard the words - and now you can understand what lies behind them. Kunstler has an appreciation for how we got here and he projects where it's leading if we don't, and even if we do, change our behaviors. To sum up his conclusions, we'll all need to live a lot more locally, since a disruption in the availability of oil will impact shipping, transportation, food and medicine production, and life as we know it. This global world will fall back in on itself, and those who get by best will be those who can produce their own food and live in a sustainable way. I never truly understood "sustainable" until reading this book, and I followed it by reading The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man Made Landscape (c. 1993); I then realized that Kunstler has been onto something with this oil thing for quite some time. Reading these books may change the way you look at short car trips, long car trips, the sort of car you drive, and even (and especially) the meaning of life if you're living it in or driving to or from the suburbs and spending a large share of your day behind the wheel. Kunstler touches on the "something for nothing" mentality of Americans and the dreaming big that we have had, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries, and of the incredible inventiveness that cheap oil and a big country gave to us. Can we do the right thing? I see holding our politicians responsible for being aware and for encouraging conservation, development of alternate forms of energy (Kunstler appears to have less belief in this concept and advocates nuclear energy more than other forms, something I and, he admits, most Americans, would disagree with for political and historical reasons, though he also recommends a return to water power using streams and rivers currently used for recreational purposes), and keeping this topic front and center as important. I also see learning some skills that would come in handy when one can no longer afford to commute long distances and when one needs to become more self-sufficient. I wondered as I read both books about the alternative to the burbs. The burbs formed because people wanted a place of their own, to spread out, to celebrate the winning of WWII, to indulge in consumerism offered by the many new developments of industry, and it wasn't a bad thing, necessarily...but it caused us uncontrolled, unfocused growth and expansion and caused big business to want to get bigger - to sell more, to disregard healthy growth, to do it all because they could. A few of the darker sides of it - the collaboration of auto, rubber, and other industries to do away with public transportation systems like the streetcar to encourage the need to buy a personal vehicle - and the machinations of some businesses to do whatever it took to force unrestrained growth of the highway system, sometimes putting people out of their homes and communities - make one ashamed of our culture. We can't turn back, we can't unpave all the freeways (would we want to?), but we can think smarter about growth and its impact on the environment and on community. I know I haven't felt a sense of community in a long time - people get that at work, maybe, or at church, but in the in-between times, they lock their door and turn on their TV and know everything and care more about the Desperate Housewives than their own neighbors. Reality shows and American Idols that we feel more for than our own cities and towns. And commercials in between prompting us to buy, buy, buy. I'm torn. I want to buy to support my community (tax dollars = my library), but where are the local businesses that care for our community? As Kunstler points out, they're all the big ones that put the little ones out of business, and then when they decide to close this or that location because it isn't producing enough revenue, the big guys really don't care about that big box sitting on that major street corner, and now it's up to the economic development office who tried so hard and gave so many incentives to woo that big wonderful company to locate here to figure out a way to attract another business there for reuse. And the blight it causes when one after the other vacate because that corner just isn't working for them. I've seen this and you've seen this. What do we do about it? You know if you've read earlier posts of mine that I'm not particularly in favor of big box stores that do little to next to nothing for the communities where they do business...BUT, I'm more than supportive of responsible, tolerant, caring businesses who #1) support their employees and #2) support their communities. I still think it's important to support the smaller local businesses when possible. I still think a company that thinks only of its bottom line ISN'T a good neighbor. I've lived in the suburbs most of my life and in the city for some part of my life. The city isn't for everyone and I think I finally understand that it isn't what Kunstler is saying. He's saying we get closer, smaller, living in a way that supports each other. If that's a city, great. If that's a small town that has a good balance of industry, housing, and doesn't obliterate the natural environment, that's great too. Kunstler characterizes the chance of survival and success in light of diminishing oil supplies. Some areas of the nation will fare better than others, and in some cases, he may be stereotyping people and regions. Still, he gets the point across that we don't have a snowball's chance in an oil well if we don't start thinking about this stuff...and the thinking may lead to doing something about it.

Meanwhile, I haven't posted in a long time, I know that. I also know that not many people read this blog, if comments are any indication. There's just one at this writing, and it's an ad. Whatever! I think, though, that I'll still make an effort to continue to post when feeing moved because I'm finding that my interests are still in the same general area but that I run into new things and ideas that are helping me put together the puzzle. Maybe, if I keep at it, there's some way I can help change or influence something.