The Grass Roots Syndrome

October 8, 2007
Because I wrote a couple of books about the design of cities (and the shortcomings of suburbia), a lot of blather comes my way about what towns around the nation are planning for the future -- and, off course, I hear plenty on the subject in my own town, Saratoga Springs, New York, which is a classic "main street" type town. I also happen to travel a lot and actually see what's going on far from home. Almost everything I see and hear is inconsistent with what I think reality has in store for us.

Most American towns, including my own, are obsessed to the point of mania with the issue of parking and more generally the management of cars, and much of their spending is directed to those ends. Municipal leaders (and the public they serve) have no idea what kind of problems the nation faces with oil. Because life in the USA has worked a particular way all their lives, they assume that it will continue to operate that way. Not only will they be disappointed as happy motoring spirals into history, but they will create a lot mischief in the meantime in planning things based on faulty assumptions.

My own town, for instance, relies heavily on tourism, in particular tourism based on happy motoring. There is not the slightest apprehension among the people here, or our leaders in city hall, that automobile-based tourism may not be happening as soon as five years from now. All our political energy is being expended in fighting about what kind of parking structures we will build (with borrowed money) and where to put them, and how these things might incorporate some secondary uses, such as police offices. We have also been debating plans for the expansion of our modest convention center -- in connection with added parking structures. It seems to me that one of the first things to go as the US economy contracts, along with its energy supply, will be activities like boat shows and optometrist's conventions.

Now this town happens to be on a railroad line that connects New York City to Montreal. Before 1950, it was the main way that people came to this town. These days, we get one train a day in each direction. The trains are invariably late, and not just a little late, but hours late. The track bed is in miserable shape and, of course, Amtrak is a sort of soviet-style management organization. There is no awareness among the public here, or our leaders, that we would benefit from improving the passenger railroad service, and around the state of New York generally there is no conversation about fixing the railroads. (Governor Elliot Spitzer is preoccupied these days with arranging to give driver's licenses to people who are in the country illegally.) We are going to pay a large penalty for these failures of attention.

Another aspect of all this has to do with our assumptions about land development. Here in my town, and elsewhere around the country, the assumption is that suburban development will continue just as it has the past sixty years. This assumption is shared both by the developers themselves and their opponents. The developers expect the current "downturn" to reverse before long. From the opponents' point of view, the assumption is based on their legitimate fears and heartaches about what they've seen heedless development do to the American landscape. Consequently, whatever mental energy is left after the parking debates get tabled is dedicated to fighting over projected suburban expansion.

My personal view about this is apparently radical -- though I am a man of modest habits and philosophy. My view is that the suburban project, per se, in the United States is over, finished. Like, totally. You can stick a fork in it. What you see is basically all that we're going to get. Not only do we not need anymore of it, but we have way too much of what is already on the ground. We don't need anymore suburban housing pods, and the ones already out there are going to hemorrhage value (and usefulness) as far ahead as anybody can imagine. We need more retail like we need 300-million holes in our heads. Ditto suburban office capacity. Ditto new roads and highways.

The projects that people see under construction now are things that went through the torturous permitting process at minimum a year ago and generally even further back. I would imagine that many of the developers of these few remaining projects -- whether they are condo villages or strip malls or chain store "power centers" -- are in deep melancholy as they read the news and desperately search for tenants. Their lenders must be equally depressed -- and in some cases cutting off further injections of capital. What remains is what bankers call "the workout" -- where the financial chips fall when people's hopes and dreams collide with reality's separate agenda.

In connection with the imminent collapse of our investments in suburbia is the fate of all the laws and codes that have governed the creation of it. I think it is a waste of effort at this point to attempt to reform what we generally refer to as "the zoning laws." They will simply become irrelevant. As we get in trouble with oil, and driving becomes more of a problem, it will be self-evident that regulations geared to keeping cars happy can no longer be followed. My guess is that for a period of time we will see a condition of stunned paralysis in the council chambers and planning boards. Eventually, if we are lucky enough to retain effective local governance, a new consensus will emerge that will be more reality-based by necessity.

In saying this, I imply that societies go through cycles of collective thinking that range from being fairly consistent with reality to being dangerously out of whack with it. We're at the latter end of the cycle these days. One of the symptoms of this is the fact that so many Americans believe the only thing wrong with America is George W. Bush, and that if only we could wiggle out of "his" war, every day would be Christmas, with Nascar around-the-clock, time-outs for shopping sprees down the aisles of the Target store, 5000-square-foot houses for all (for $750 a month), and three BMWs parked in the driveway. . . with fries, and supersize it!

In reality, there's a lot more wrong with how we live and how we think about how we live than the mere presence of George W. Bush at the head of the federal government. Our expectations are deeply out of phase with what the earth can provide for us and what the future has in store for us, and this failure of our collective imagination goes down to the grass roots.

Comments

[Holmes, I presume]

Good essay, Jim! “[S]ocieties go through cycles of collective thinking that range from being fairly consistent with reality to being dangerously out of whack with it. We're at the latter end of the cycle these days.”

Yes, it certainly seems as if there’s a hysteresis at play.

[oneEyeOpen]

Jimmie,

What you don't seem to "get" is that we have what we have. There will be no walking away from surburbia because that is simply not an option. More than 50% of America lives in the burbs. Are you suggesting that all those shelters will be abandoned because they are inconveniently located? OK Jim, I've left my car dependent home. And I'm walking away from my failed neighborhood to where? What better alternative are 150 million lemmings moving towards?

"Daddy, it's cold", the little childen cry. "Quiet, little darlings", daddy replies. "We must leave our unsustainable neighborhood because uncle Jim has declared it thus. Fear not we have a wonderful park bench awaiting us in the big city. Onward to the city. Cities good.Suburbs bad."

Please. You alude to the fact that current zoning laws will be thrown out the window but you don't take that thought far enough. The big box stores will disappear. They will be replaced by little box stores. They will appear in every fifth suburban cul-de-sac.(Currently prohibited by zoning laws.) The one room school house will reappear as well.

Is it madness to continue the outbuild, knowing what we know? Yeah no question about it. That always occurs when there are fundamental, societal shifts. People continue doing the same-old-same-old out of habit. But thinking the suburbs are going to be walked away from is just plain, down right silly.

[Yeoman_Lawyer]

I agree, a very fine essay.

When I read items of this type, I have to admit that I'm in the guilty situation of not really believing it will happen, but at the same time hoping it will. If the Suburban blight and seemingly endless cancerous grown of urban areas, fueled as it is by insane lending practices, comes crashing down, well I'm afraid I'm in favor of the crash. As shocking event as it would be, and as distressing as it would be to many people, that'd be a net gain to society in real terms.

[asoka]

How many years have I been following this blog? Predictions of $100 a barrel oil are years overdue.
Now I have to wait five years more?

The predictions have failed. The reality is the price of a gallon of gas is $2.75, down from $3.33 not that long ago.

[Tangurena]

People have been lulled into the false memories of "the good old days" mostly by TV, which creates and reinforces these myths. The book "The Way We Never Were" is one such book that chronicles just what family life really was like in the past.
http://www.amazon.com/Way-We-Never-Were-Nostalgia/dp/0465090974

On some other forums, I've been threatened with bodily harm for claiming that "Father Knows Best" and "Ozzie and Harriet" were *not* documentaries. I suspect the mass delusions will take significant pain to wash away. I'm not confident that most communities will be willing to accept that *any* changes are necessary to survive a long emergency, and will continue to fantasize that they can ghost dance their way back to the dreamtime of the 1950s.

I currently live in Denver, and the public transportation is pretty good, along with some decent bike paths. Biking to work isn't too life threatening, although time consuming. I can average about 10-12 mph biking (being in my late 40s and very overweight), which includes stoplights, compared to 30-35 mph travelling the same streets via car. As a comparison, the world-class athletes who compete in the Tour de France also average 35-40 mph over the 50-150 mile courses (they average about 100 miles per day over the "tour").

As for the overbuilding, most construction companies have most of their capital tied up in land, and with the collapse of real estate prices, the only way they can recover some of their "investment" is to slap anything on that land and try to sell *that*. This will further exacerbate the real estate "crisis" as they drive the prices down, which cause homeowners to lose more "equity" that never really was.

Maybe we should just call our selves the United States of Delusion, or the Delusional States of America, or something like that. It would be more honest.

[marcyincny]

Thanks for the RR info; I've been considering joining my husband when he attends, yes, a conference in Saratoga Springs this month and putting it together with a trip to Montreal.

Meanwhile we attended a wedding this weekend and sat with a couple who went on and on about their kids, more privileged young people who are planning careers in the arts and/or entertainment industry. It's an epidemic. I can't believe how many kids we know, or know of, are planning to be actors, film makers, "communications" majors, chefs, fashion designers, one wants to be a 'stylist' whatever that is... And they're spending up to $200,000 for college degrees in this silliness. I don't see how these people are ever going to be able to cope, to keep a roof over their head, put food on the table when they realize that they're actually going to have to live in a world doesn't look anything like the one they've grown up in.

[Gulland]

JHK,

Great post! But...

Fear not, help is on the way in the form of skyscraper farming. We can continue merrily on our way now with no fear. We can even have one of these babies in the middle of the NASCAR infield!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21154137/

In all seriousness, though, I believe when this all begins to fall apart, people won't believe what's happening before their eyes. In a very few years, we'll long for the good ol' days of $3 and $4 gas. In a decade we'll be back to darning socks and re-soling shoes. Step into the Wayback Machine, the pilot has turned on the fasten seat belt sign...

Gulland

[steve duncan]

I live in a major Midwestern town, a capital city. There are numerous industrial parks dotting every quadrant of the city, inside and outside city limits. Visit any one and construction is booming, new gleaming glass offices and mega-warehouses going up. At the same time a drive through the area shows vacant offices and warehouses for lease. Yet they still biuld anew. Also throughout the city and adjoining suburbs home construction is full speed ahead. Thousands of what I call "beige" homes are being built, nondescript plastic boxes on nondescript streets. Maybe they were permitted a year ago but my experience in this city indicates all the commercial units will eventually find tenets and the homes will find buyers. Maybe suburban sprawl is a thing of the past. I'll bet you this though, a year from now I'll be able to make the same observations. It just never stops. I can get on a highway in any direction ten miles outside of town and vast fields are being leveled for who knows what. Homes, strip malls, stores, industrial parks. And guess what, in 2-3 years they'll being stripping more fields for more construction. Maybe Jim is correct (I suspect he's dead on) but happy motoring and suburban sprawl are showing exactly ZERO levels of reduction where I live.

[RJG]

re: hopes and dreams colliding with reality's separate agenda..

Great stuff Jim..
very concise..

[artiefacts]

"One of the symptoms of this is the fact that so many Americans believe the only thing wrong with America is George W. Bush"

Funny, I don't know a single person - conservative, liberal, NASCAR dad or Greenpeace mom - who believes the "only" thing wrong with America is George Bush.

George Bush is certainly one thing that is very wrong with America, but once again Kunstler throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Keep up the crabby scold schtick, Jim, and no one will listen, even the PO aware.

[Gulland]

steve duncan,

I'm not seeing much wisdom in land use here (southern Wisconsin) either. Small towns are putting in new subdiversions (no typo) while dozens of houses are for sale in the towns. They're creating new infrastructure for the new hoods, creating all the traffic problems, storm water issues, etc, and for what? New, shiny, special, dream home, exclusive. Insert real estate blah, blah here. We want to be special, don't we. "Daddy, it's getting cold," is exactly what's going to happen, OneEye. Cold is a very 'special' feeling.

Tanqurena, Delusional States of America is so good. Why do towns keep zoning this stuff in? What's it going to take to illuminate the obvious problems with this kind of growth and developments?

Gulland

[Kickaha]

The most frustrating intangible for future survival for me is the pathetic helplessness of so many Americans in the face of the slightest obstacle.

I work in an office, where I'm continually dealing with other people's problems that should never have come to me.

"What have you tried so far," I ask. And they nearly always reply, "nothing."

I don't know exactly when America lost it's can-do spirit, but it ain't here now. We keep building worthless crap because we as a nation are incapable of changing our behaviour according to our circumsances.

[judetennessee]

I decided to put my money where JHK's mouth is and move from a sprawling, crime ridden Southern metropolis to a walkable community in Idaho. I returned my leased car and now I am relying on walking, biking, public transportation and an occasional rental car. I have downsized and am now living in a downtown 800 sq. foot leased apt. There is a local farmers market here but I have spoken to some of the venders and they drive from other states to bring in organic produce and grass fed beef. That was the problem with the Farmers Market in the town I left behind. I am going to try to help promote sustainable agriculture for my new hobby. Yet, I see new subdivisions springing up to cater to West Coast transplants and there is no train service but there is a drop dead gorgeous 1920s train station. Keep your fingers crossed for me as I try to help forstall in some small way The Long Emergency.

[Gulland]

judetennessee,

Good move! I'm a former big Southern city dweller as well. Though I terribly miss my family and friends, I could never consider moving back into the life I lived in the city. 7 years into the 'change' and I know I did the right thing. By the way, Idaho has the best peaches I have ever eaten. Good luck with your new lifestyle choice.

Gulland

[bud4wiser]

JK,
Nice enough essay - pretty much a repetition of the "vested interest" theme. It is indeed a terrifying, and oh-so-truly {paralyzing} concept.

The trouble with Peak Oil is that as it unfolds - it will require a timely, agile and accurate response from our leadership and electorate. And the troublesome aspect - is that any effective responses to Peak Oil will be hampered, restrained, hoodwinked, handcuffed by any and all of many powerful special interests that rely on consuming vast quantities of petroleum.

Even now, in plain sight, these insane fantasies play out as a {bridge to nowhere} in Alaska and a $500 billion dollar transportation budget largely geared to adding concrete to rural zip codes.

One sure fact, that will eventually surface in the public’s generally myopic line of sight will be just how illogical and disconnected these various government-supported projects appear when Peak Oil {through market forces} begins causing the common folks some {less-happy-motoring.}

Perhaps the most cogent argument for an early acceptance and planned response for Peak Oil can be demonstrated by these aforementioned abominations of Federal fiscal responsibilities.

In other words, even if you refuse to worry about Peak Oil -- you should be very afraid as you watch your government wax incrementally farther and farther away from the reality of providing for the future common welfare of this nation.

Peak Oil’s multiple attributes will limit this nation’s ability to construct efficient sustainable infrastructure in addition to eventually crippling the common individual’s ridiculous lifestyle. Talk about a {negative feedback loop} !!!!

[Bubbanp]

Peak Oil is starting to be mentioned in the mainstream press (there was an op-ed piece in the Buffalo News yesterday).

I am utterly convinced PO is on its way, but I am less certain of the type of the resulting apocalyptic collapse described in The Long Emergency (which was a well written book). This uncertainty may be wishful thinking, or that first phase of the grieving process; denial.

My wife and I just returned from the west coast of Vancouver Island (and burned some serious fossil fuels getting there). Beautiful place. Lots of treehuggers (some even driving their 4WDS), eating local and sustainable produce and seafood. But without oil, the place may return to an isolated outpost with no access to the ubiquitous fair trade organic coffee found in the local cafes.

My cohorts, colleagues, friends etc think I am a bit daft, what with my fixation on PO. They seem blissfully unaware, or convinced that technology will bail us out. The alternative, to them, even myself, is unthinkable.

I'm re-reading Dark Age ahead by Jane Jacobs, well worth a read in the context of peak oil. Empires do collapse.

But I am rambling.

Off for a latte.

Bubba

[dale]

"It's an epidemic. I can't believe how many kids we know, or know of, are planning to be actors, film makers, "communications" majors, chefs, fashion designers, one wants to be a 'stylist' whatever that is... And they're spending up to $200,000 for college degrees in this silliness."

Yeah....I wonder about that too. I guess this is a reaction to an economy that seems to be based on the notion that we can go on selling each other bikini waxes and lattes forever. In that "reality" the growth industries are entertainment and the arts. One can almost see the Sword of Damacles hovering over our University system.

[Nicholas Paredes]

Predictions are really not my thing, as reality has a way of making their arrival unanticipated, and the consequences either amplified or diminished. But, I have followed peak oil for a number of years, and I doubt it will disappear as a very, very real possibility. I doubt that our energy situation will be satiated by anything else anticipated. I also doubt we will be prepared in the least. But a number of issues, such as warming, will make this issue less of a singular nightmare.

I think that we’ll pull through, but without our egos intact. Hopefully, we won’t continue to sacrifice our integrity for our egos however. This rational thinking I share, though we don’t have the ethical basis today to really look at our demands on the world or our needs as people. It is surprising, or perhaps not, to look at religion in general, and find that even within these communities people tend to look at their desires first, and their effects on other people a bit further down the list. One can hope that we will get around to finding some sort of balance.

Marcy, I am a designer, and everything I see tends to support an increase in creative production of some form. I would rather buy, and pay more for, work that others are personally involved with. Even with food, the idea that people love what they do, and practice their craft in a manner which is analogous to my beliefs, is important. We pay way too little for food, so I act as though it costs more. My food tends to be better now, but how long that lasts is beyond my foresight. We may not make as much doing our work in such scenarios, but I doubt that the need will decrease. Trade isn’t only about needs, and likely never was. Read “Non-Zero.” While our trade may become much more internal, due to our resources being expended rebuilding our urban areas, I’m pretty optimistic about work not coming to a grinding halt. Peak oil, in my opinion, would be a much better scenario than a general economic collapse; even in the depression work and lives went on for most people, except those who chose ego over id, and couldn’t bear to live without the comfort they acquired.

[DerekK]

Kunstler doesn't say that people are going to "walk away" from their suburban crapshacks. But suburbia is going to "walk away" from them, i.e. disintegrate into the moldy earth. What's the difference?

It's already happening - in my neighborhood, no less. For 99% of houses, it takes a lot of money and effort to stay even with entropy, never mind turning them into something you'd enjoy living in.

[Nudge]

Gulland, nice commentary earlier and thanks for the link to the parking-garage agricultural scheme. It illustrates very nicely how caught up in the meme of the current times the idea's promoters are .. to paraphrase roughly, they see the amount of arable land shrinking due to unrestrained overbuilding, so they hope to affect a “rescue” with, wait for it, yet another building.

OEO, welcome back from wherever you've been. I liked you use of the concept of choices and better alternatives, because those are precisely what will be missing when push comes to shove. Right now, in the heyday of the Oil Age and in the heart of the Happy Motoring Republic, we're accustomed to thinking of everything as choices. We still have the luxury of regarding the fundamentals that way, thanks to all the “energy slaves” at our beck and call.

But when the time comes, yeah, it will be more a matter of your exemplified Daddy taking the kids into the city to find space in a shelter or maybe relatives to stay with. Why? Because it won't be a “choice” .. just look at how much residential space (much of it poorly-built and under-insulated) here in the UPL is dependent upon fossil fuels for heating. If you fail to maintain adequate internal temperature during the cold months in the northern states, the pipes freeze and burst, the structure gets damaged, etc, and it's no longer habitable at the current standards of acceptance. Multiply that scenario by tens of millions of similar ones as the fuels deplete or become priced out of the range of all the toiling J6Ps out there.

In the same manner, it won't be “choice” when Daddy applies for a job on one of those new federal farms, because by then the price of fuel will have done away with his drive-to job at Standard Widget in that industrial park a few towns away, with the building itself, and with the business model upon which the company depended. Yes, there will still be commerce in the “after” phase of all this, but it will be smaller, more local, and more locally-financed.

[Nudge]

OEO, what happens with all that craptastic tract housing covering the land is anyone's guess. I assume you're already familiar with how that mode of living depends in vast imported flows of fossil fuel energy to run everything, to pave and lubricate everything, to heat everything, to transport the lumpenfolks back and forth, etc?

Well, lucky for you, it's not necessary to sit there chin-in-hand and to try to imagine how this will end. It's already happening. As shown on Ben Jones' excellent Housing Bubble Blog site (sorry for the lack of hard links; the content there refreshes rapidly) we're already seeing quite the uptick in incidences of abandoned foreclosed homes being burned down by druggies, bored teenagers, and the occasional squatter trying to keep warm. In many instances, the “homeowners” (aka fool buyers, or FBs) simply moved out in the middle of the night and left the place as is, with the doors unlocked.

Any guesses as to the half-life a typical fallaparticle-board piece o' suburban housing under such circumstances? The city of Cleveland is already spending millions each year trying to maintain all the abandoned properties in and around the city. As expensive as it is to put alarm systems on those houses, mow the lawns, paint the exteriors, wash the windows, etc, the alternative is even worse, since the houses are gutted of wiring and plumbing by salvagers, then the kids and junkies and squatters get in, and pretty soon you've got a burning mess on your hands, and then another home that's become a casualty of the times.

Don't know where all these people are going, but I'd guess that at least some of them are moving south to warmer climes, some are moving in with their relatives, some are going on welfare elsewhere in the UPL, and some will become homeless.

[Mike Bendzela]

Jim, I have been highly critical of you in other forums--even in spite of my using your work in my writing classes--because sometimes you have indulged in the most ludicrous psychobabble, and you have attacked the very people who will be suffering the most in the near future--the NASCAR working class. These are still my folks, even though I don't relate to them much anymore.

This article, however, reminds me what a fantastic voice yours is in this hopeless task of trying to inform people about what is happening right under their noses.

Your views above are interesting to me because they are rooted in a sense of history and a love of your town and country. You sound intelligent without sounding supercilious or stuffy, and the humorous passages sound more wistful than facetious, and there's no mean-spiritedness.

You could be talking about my town of Standish, Maine, once a gorgeous farm community, now an unfolding catastrophe of traffic and "development." It has become a mere crossroads for the exurbanites who commute to Portland, and as a result the traffic on our small roads is hideous. Of course, there's talk of a "bypass," as the next town in toward Portland--Gorham--is busy bulldozing its trees and hills to re-circulate bulging lanes of commuter traffic around its already-dead downtown, once a grand colonial/victorian main street with trolley turn-around in the central intersection, now a truck-coalgulated, box-store-and-pizza-joint jumble.

In order for my town of Standish to "keep up" with Gorham, it has committed serial murder of its farmhouses near the town center. One was dismantled and carted away to make way for a "dunkin dognuts," even after it was decided that the old building could have tolerated being used as a business. But no, d.d. has its own "signature" building style, which was deemed "appropriate" after they added cheap clapboards, snap-in window muntins, and a fake cupola.

Another building was dozed out of the way of a "Pit Stop" gas station and "convenience" store, and the new tenants were so bitter about the dispute over whether they could build there that they chopped down the "buffer" of trees they had originally promised to leave by the road.

In addition, since I've been living here, a shopping center--infuriatingly called "The Colonial Marketplace"--has muscled its way in beside an old apple orchard; a farmhouse has disappeared to be suddenly replaced with a realtor; meanwhile, the very core of the town--the above-mentioned ruined crossroads--is rotting from within. The Exxon/Mobil cubicle right smack in the middle of town recently kicked out its tenant, a reputable mechanic. They had some new guy there just pumping gas for awhile, but the shitbox is now posted as CLOSED. The gas station across the street from it, once the site of a center-hall, four-square colonial, has been boarded up for two years now. Two other antique buildings at the crossroads have been abandoned and for sale for over a year now, and I tremble to think about what's going to happen to them.

We live on one of the last "country" roads in the town, and we no longer dare to take a horse out on it due to the speeding high-school students drag racing home after 2pm. When we cut hay now, new grinning "neighbors" pull over to the side of the road to take pictures of us as if this were Lancaster County, PA. Otherwise, the neighborhood is pretty dead.

Down the road, a new subdivision continues to metastasize. Begun several years ago, it is an example of what you describe as a project that has survived the "tortuous permitting process" begun years ago. A huge, wide, flat roadbed now plunges straight into a wetland. We call it "The Road To Nowhere."

A neighbor is a friend of the "developer" who has sunk himself into this swamp, I mean project. When our neighbor asked the guy who he thought was going to buy into the place now that the market has collapsed and half the town has been for sale for over a year, the developer reputedly said, "I have to finish it. I'm in it too far now to pull out."

Thanks, Jim, for articulating the nationwide discontent brewing beneath the shiny surface of America. I might even stop bitching about your tendency to make fun of those who don't even know they're the downtrodden yet. ;-]

[Smankolio]

It wrankles the living stuffings out of me when I hear blog-stalking pundits histrionically bemoaning how it is that the great unwashed (among whom I've always dwelled) "just don't get it." To them, we're just a seething legion of zombots who drive inefficient cars to service-sector jobs, eat mass-produced animal products, and consume televised sports . . . and we seem to (gulp) ENJOY it. "My, oh my," they swoon, "what will these poor bastards do when our favorite heat-and-serve acronym (TSHTF) comes cascading from the heights of our junior-high-sci-fi wet dreams of apocalypse? We'll be nestled in our own private organic-agriculture co-op utopia (which happens to be all white, strangely), listening to Grateful Dead-leftovers groups and NPR, safe from the desperation of those who were just trying to get by."

Sorry, gang, but we'll ALL be screwed if things get as bad as you say they will. Unless you're COMPLETELY off the grid, like a Kalahari bushman, save your self-righteous guano for your fellow hempsters. Better yet, come over to my wasteful McMansion (actually, mine is more of a Wal-Mansion), and we'll talk about the "Long Emergency," over red meat and refined sugar.

[Tangurena]

Gulland, there are several themes going on:

1 - Many towns and cities are afraid of saying "no." For example, when a Walmart decides to move into the neighborhood, they do a very good job of prosletyzing and getting their supporters to agitate for zoning exemptions and handouts. They also do a very effective job of sueing municipalities into submission.

2 - Many people are eternal optimists. To survive in the Real Estate business, one has to be so optimistic that it becomes contagious. Self improvement books call this mindset "fake it until you make it." This degree of over-optimism leads to:

3 - Failure to recognize what is actually going on. Oh, it's just a few bad loans. Oh, it's just a blip in the market. Oh, it's just Greenspan. Oh, it's just defeatism. We as a country have been destroying, corrupting and perverting all our feedback mechanisms that would tell us we're on the wrong track. A thermostat is a simple feedback/control mechanism: when it senses that things are too hot, the heat gets turned off (or AC gets turned on); if things are too cold, the heat gets turned on (or AC gets turned off). When you pervert or corrupt a feedback mechanism, your heater gets turned on when it is too hot (positive feedback) or doesn't get turned off when it is too hot. A thermostat is a "negative feedback" system. Positive feedback systems are unstable, and the most commonly recognized one is the squeal you get when loudspeakers feed back into a microphone. When a financial system's feedback loops get corrupted, no one can tell if loans are good or bad (or in Zimbabwe's case, if the money is good for anything), so the rational thing to do is to leave the market until regulations restore order to the market (which is the basis for the credit crunch that took out several huge funds at Bear Stearns, is crippling many mortgage lenders and took down one large British bank). Are we "winning" or "losing" in Iraq? Since the administration has been perverting and corrupting the feedback mechanisms, the only rational answer is "losing" as a winning state would not need to destroy the ability to determine what is actually going on. Which leads to:

4 - Willpower is more important than reality. Actually looking at reality will get one called "defeatist," or as I mentioned earlier, threatened with bodily harm for showing that the Emperor's New Clothes don't exist.

5 - Growth is (always) good. The mindset in the US is that growth is good, and always good. A CEO that doesn't continue growth will get thrown out, even if there is no more room to grow. An example is Microsoft, with almost 98% of the market share for operating systems. They can't take more of the marketshare, so they have to try to expand into new markets to create growth. Their stock has been flat for years and BillG left before he was booted to the curb. Growth is always seen as good, and the perception is always that the positive aspects will always triumph over the negative aspects.

I don't expect the bush administration to leave office in 2008/2009. I expect them to cook up some fake crisis (Look! Over there! It's bird flu! No! Over there! It's AlNeda! No! Over there! It's hillary!) where they have to stay in power for "the duration" of the emergency. And I expect our future to look a lot more like Zimbabwe's if that happens.

[Nudge]

Smankplio, hello, the proles you mentioned are indeed quite funny even to those of us belonging to exactly the same social class. Most of those SUV-driving Prole-Mart shopping IBC-beer swilling NASCAR watchers earn more than I do anyway. It's not who you are so much as how you choose to spend your money and time.

And sorry, but I totally dispute your notion about how living off the grid is an all-or-nothing thing with respect to being able to comment on it or not. Lots of people here are already taking small steps to get there. For those of us who still have regular jobs, drive cars, and buy stuff in stores, going all-out to the cave-dwelling mode would be, at the least, an exercise in challenging logistics.

However, given that fossil fuels are on the wane just as our ability to afford them is going down and just as human population is exploding, etc, don't you think it makes sense to start exploring other arrangements before these things become essential to survival?