Peak Suburbia, and Suburbia 2.0
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.
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.
-- James Howard Kunstler, Peak Suburbia, (Clusterfuck Nation)
I've been tossing around some ideas for a plant/seed/produce/tool-sharing site to grow a community around local gardeners, (urban, rural, and in-between.)
It seems a nice blend of [my interests in] web, software, ecology, and local community -- helping to build that economy/ecosystem that'll become necessary as our current concoction collapses, (as Kunstler continues to promise.)
I need a good project, but it might be more than I'm up for right now.
comments
I'll help out from the design end if need be.
-- Adam Harvey (July 7, 2007 7:30 AM)
thanks, adam!
we'll see what happens.
i've found some alternatives already, whose full-featuredness wasn't unexpected but is still daunting.
-- jeffschuler (July 10, 2007 11:35 AM)
Sounds like a project worthy of some time and attention.
My friends and I have been discussing this subject off and on, too: Just about every aspect of our lives is shaped or influenced by the availability of cheap gas. When the price of oil gets too high, they won't be shipping apples up to our local Giant Eagle from Venezuela any more.
When I was a kid, almost every family I knew home-canned produce from the garden for winter. Would be fun to get back to that sort of lifestyle. It both provided healthy food and strengthened our community because everybody got together to share knowledge, materials and surplus tomato juice/pickles/zucchini.
-- Eric Wiley (July 12, 2007 9:15 AM)
I should have read Kunstler's essay before making my prev. post. He said what I said, only better. And scarier.
-- Eric Wiley (July 12, 2007 9:24 AM)
But you're right on the money, Eric...
Kunstler's foreseen future scares and excites me. I'm confident that he's overly pessimistic, but I think we need someone shouting this message.
Our society doesn't need the bottom to fall out, but it does need to be shaken & awakened.
...One picture in my head is of millions of suburban (ex-)"lawns," lush, fertile, overflowing...
-- jeffschuler (July 12, 2007 7:04 PM)