> When Kunstler writes about sprawl (his most carefully
> considered topic) everyone laughs and applauds.
> Conservatives love it because he's skewering the
> modernity that, according to modern legend
> (ironically) destroyed the American Family. Liberals
> and 'progressives' love it because he writes and
> speaks smartly about the many aesthetic deficits of
> contemporary design.
You're omitting those of us who prefer our lives without the car and simply enjoy walkable cities. I can remember those fleeting exceptions where driving is still a pleasure, but I can't live in those exceptions. The only exception I can live in is a walkable city.
Besides, skewering modernity is not inherently vile. The execution hasn't exactly been flawless.
Postwar America was built on cheap oil, and that era will eventual pass. Geopolitics, technology, and prices all shift when the date arrives, but I don't listen and read Kunstler to mark my calender. Today, finance has conscripted us into a course on Knightian-Keynesian uncertainty, and the lessons apply no less to oil. The threat of deflation may not have been a given ten years ago, either, but we still have to live through it.
Arguing against denial is exasperating. Jim is arguing with American's dream of cheap energy without end and faith that technology will save us from ourselves. So, I indulge the crankiness.
Shane