The Decline Of Suburbia?

[HarryBosch]

Experts Predict Exodus From Far-Flung Neighborhoods Back To Urban Living

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/07/eveningnews/main4329746.shtml

Some developments are left half built while other homes look abandoned. Demand for suburban housing is dropping so fast that a recent study predicts that by 2025 there will be a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes in suburban areas.

It sounds hard to believe, but some experts are now predicting that this could be the beginning of the end of suburbia — that far-flung neighborhoods could be tomorrow’s slums.

Author James Howard Kunstler (“The Long Emergency”) has been predicting the decline of the suburbs for more than 15 years.

“I think the project of suburbia is over,” he says.

Kunstler says housing far away from job centers won’t survive.

(Just saw this on CBS News. I live out in Temecula so I’m glad I’m still renting. I wonder if Alvin Toffler had this in his Future Shock book?)

[Ren]

A few people have predicted this, probably in a misguided attempt at minor fame in the off chance they’re right. However, it will never happen. The trend is toward alternative sources of energy. In the long term, people will live wherever they’re most comfortable, as they always have. For millions like me, that’s the suburbs. The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

[Ren]

A few people have predicted this, probably in a misguided attempt at minor fame in the off chance they’re right. However, it will never happen. The trend is toward alternative sources of energy. In the long term, people will live wherever they’re most comfortable, as they always have. For millions like me, that’s the suburbs. The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

[Ren]

A few people have predicted this, probably in a misguided attempt at minor fame in the off chance they’re right. However, it will never happen. The trend is toward alternative sources of energy. In the long term, people will live wherever they’re most comfortable, as they always have. For millions like me, that’s the suburbs. The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

[Ren]

A few people have predicted this, probably in a misguided attempt at minor fame in the off chance they’re right. However, it will never happen. The trend is toward alternative sources of energy. In the long term, people will live wherever they’re most comfortable, as they always have. For millions like me, that’s the suburbs. The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

[Ren]

A few people have predicted this, probably in a misguided attempt at minor fame in the off chance they’re right. However, it will never happen. The trend is toward alternative sources of energy. In the long term, people will live wherever they’re most comfortable, as they always have. For millions like me, that’s the suburbs. The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

[Arraya]

The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

Yes, the just-in-time techno-fairy will save us. Time is ticking and the back side of Hubbert’s curve awaits in just a few short years away. Once terminal decline starts it’s a different reality. The past year gave us a little preview of what it will look like, though to a much lesser degree

Americans relationships with their cars is analogous to stockholm syndrome.

Get yourself acquainted with Dr. Hirsch

http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

Here is what he said..

“The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”

Somebody has go to shut up those damn communist scientists up.

And here is the latest production forecast, looks like 2011 we will start our decent…

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45940

We are so close to the peak now that quibbles about the numbers cited here do not matter. My familiarity with the oil industry justifies many of the “hidden assumptions” I’ve made and did not have time to discuss. If you remain unconvinced that a peak of world crude oil production is not almost upon us, nothing I could say further will persuade you in any case.
As I said at the top, this is my official forecast and I will not revise it in the future. I will note for the historical record that in July of 2008 few Americans have come to grips with the implications of a permanent peak in the world’s oil supply despite the strong price signal we’ve seen for several years now. I have done all I could over the last few years to warn everyone about what’s coming. My conscience is clear even as my concern remains high.
For me, the time has come to examine measures we might take in the post-peak world.

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for – a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter

[Arraya]

The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

Yes, the just-in-time techno-fairy will save us. Time is ticking and the back side of Hubbert’s curve awaits in just a few short years away. Once terminal decline starts it’s a different reality. The past year gave us a little preview of what it will look like, though to a much lesser degree

Americans relationships with their cars is analogous to stockholm syndrome.

Get yourself acquainted with Dr. Hirsch

http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

Here is what he said..

“The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”

Somebody has go to shut up those damn communist scientists up.

And here is the latest production forecast, looks like 2011 we will start our decent…

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45940

We are so close to the peak now that quibbles about the numbers cited here do not matter. My familiarity with the oil industry justifies many of the “hidden assumptions” I’ve made and did not have time to discuss. If you remain unconvinced that a peak of world crude oil production is not almost upon us, nothing I could say further will persuade you in any case.
As I said at the top, this is my official forecast and I will not revise it in the future. I will note for the historical record that in July of 2008 few Americans have come to grips with the implications of a permanent peak in the world’s oil supply despite the strong price signal we’ve seen for several years now. I have done all I could over the last few years to warn everyone about what’s coming. My conscience is clear even as my concern remains high.
For me, the time has come to examine measures we might take in the post-peak world.

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for – a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter

[Arraya]

The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

Yes, the just-in-time techno-fairy will save us. Time is ticking and the back side of Hubbert’s curve awaits in just a few short years away. Once terminal decline starts it’s a different reality. The past year gave us a little preview of what it will look like, though to a much lesser degree

Americans relationships with their cars is analogous to stockholm syndrome.

Get yourself acquainted with Dr. Hirsch

http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

Here is what he said..

“The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”

Somebody has go to shut up those damn communist scientists up.

And here is the latest production forecast, looks like 2011 we will start our decent…

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45940

We are so close to the peak now that quibbles about the numbers cited here do not matter. My familiarity with the oil industry justifies many of the “hidden assumptions” I’ve made and did not have time to discuss. If you remain unconvinced that a peak of world crude oil production is not almost upon us, nothing I could say further will persuade you in any case.
As I said at the top, this is my official forecast and I will not revise it in the future. I will note for the historical record that in July of 2008 few Americans have come to grips with the implications of a permanent peak in the world’s oil supply despite the strong price signal we’ve seen for several years now. I have done all I could over the last few years to warn everyone about what’s coming. My conscience is clear even as my concern remains high.
For me, the time has come to examine measures we might take in the post-peak world.

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for – a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter

[Arraya]

The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

Yes, the just-in-time techno-fairy will save us. Time is ticking and the back side of Hubbert’s curve awaits in just a few short years away. Once terminal decline starts it’s a different reality. The past year gave us a little preview of what it will look like, though to a much lesser degree

Americans relationships with their cars is analogous to stockholm syndrome.

Get yourself acquainted with Dr. Hirsch

http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

Here is what he said..

“The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”

Somebody has go to shut up those damn communist scientists up.

And here is the latest production forecast, looks like 2011 we will start our decent…

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45940

We are so close to the peak now that quibbles about the numbers cited here do not matter. My familiarity with the oil industry justifies many of the “hidden assumptions” I’ve made and did not have time to discuss. If you remain unconvinced that a peak of world crude oil production is not almost upon us, nothing I could say further will persuade you in any case.
As I said at the top, this is my official forecast and I will not revise it in the future. I will note for the historical record that in July of 2008 few Americans have come to grips with the implications of a permanent peak in the world’s oil supply despite the strong price signal we’ve seen for several years now. I have done all I could over the last few years to warn everyone about what’s coming. My conscience is clear even as my concern remains high.
For me, the time has come to examine measures we might take in the post-peak world.

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for – a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter

[Arraya]

The cost of commuting won’t be an issue. If that author honestly believes gasoline will be the fuel of choice in 2025, he’s living under a rock.

Yes, the just-in-time techno-fairy will save us. Time is ticking and the back side of Hubbert’s curve awaits in just a few short years away. Once terminal decline starts it’s a different reality. The past year gave us a little preview of what it will look like, though to a much lesser degree

Americans relationships with their cars is analogous to stockholm syndrome.

Get yourself acquainted with Dr. Hirsch

http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

Here is what he said..

“The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”

Somebody has go to shut up those damn communist scientists up.

And here is the latest production forecast, looks like 2011 we will start our decent…

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45940

We are so close to the peak now that quibbles about the numbers cited here do not matter. My familiarity with the oil industry justifies many of the “hidden assumptions” I’ve made and did not have time to discuss. If you remain unconvinced that a peak of world crude oil production is not almost upon us, nothing I could say further will persuade you in any case.
As I said at the top, this is my official forecast and I will not revise it in the future. I will note for the historical record that in July of 2008 few Americans have come to grips with the implications of a permanent peak in the world’s oil supply despite the strong price signal we’ve seen for several years now. I have done all I could over the last few years to warn everyone about what’s coming. My conscience is clear even as my concern remains high.
For me, the time has come to examine measures we might take in the post-peak world.

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for – a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter

[temeculaguy]

We had this same discussion about the same author a month ago. Families aren’t moving downtown and biking to work. Some people will. Childless young professionals will do it for a little while but the majority of families want a yard, a dog, good schools, quiet and be far away from poor people and the homeless. I’m not saying these are my issues but they are the issues of real people and those of us in the West are especially fond of elbow room and privacy, we are not Europe. Switching from a chevy suburban to a prius will happen long before the residents of the burbs switch to city heights and golden hill. The same argument can be made for our mass tranist. It’s not that we dont like busses and trains, we don’t like the unwashed that ride them.

This guy misses the whole reason the suburbs exist, people dont flee proximity, they flee other people. If poor people can’t afford the gas to live in the burbs, it will only serve to make them more inviting.

I also agree with the other posters, oil is over, the price is the catalyst to force change, we needed this.

[temeculaguy]

We had this same discussion about the same author a month ago. Families aren’t moving downtown and biking to work. Some people will. Childless young professionals will do it for a little while but the majority of families want a yard, a dog, good schools, quiet and be far away from poor people and the homeless. I’m not saying these are my issues but they are the issues of real people and those of us in the West are especially fond of elbow room and privacy, we are not Europe. Switching from a chevy suburban to a prius will happen long before the residents of the burbs switch to city heights and golden hill. The same argument can be made for our mass tranist. It’s not that we dont like busses and trains, we don’t like the unwashed that ride them.

This guy misses the whole reason the suburbs exist, people dont flee proximity, they flee other people. If poor people can’t afford the gas to live in the burbs, it will only serve to make them more inviting.

I also agree with the other posters, oil is over, the price is the catalyst to force change, we needed this.

[temeculaguy]

We had this same discussion about the same author a month ago. Families aren’t moving downtown and biking to work. Some people will. Childless young professionals will do it for a little while but the majority of families want a yard, a dog, good schools, quiet and be far away from poor people and the homeless. I’m not saying these are my issues but they are the issues of real people and those of us in the West are especially fond of elbow room and privacy, we are not Europe. Switching from a chevy suburban to a prius will happen long before the residents of the burbs switch to city heights and golden hill. The same argument can be made for our mass tranist. It’s not that we dont like busses and trains, we don’t like the unwashed that ride them.

This guy misses the whole reason the suburbs exist, people dont flee proximity, they flee other people. If poor people can’t afford the gas to live in the burbs, it will only serve to make them more inviting.

I also agree with the other posters, oil is over, the price is the catalyst to force change, we needed this.

[temeculaguy]

We had this same discussion about the same author a month ago. Families aren’t moving downtown and biking to work. Some people will. Childless young professionals will do it for a little while but the majority of families want a yard, a dog, good schools, quiet and be far away from poor people and the homeless. I’m not saying these are my issues but they are the issues of real people and those of us in the West are especially fond of elbow room and privacy, we are not Europe. Switching from a chevy suburban to a prius will happen long before the residents of the burbs switch to city heights and golden hill. The same argument can be made for our mass tranist. It’s not that we dont like busses and trains, we don’t like the unwashed that ride them.

This guy misses the whole reason the suburbs exist, people dont flee proximity, they flee other people. If poor people can’t afford the gas to live in the burbs, it will only serve to make them more inviting.

I also agree with the other posters, oil is over, the price is the catalyst to force change, we needed this.

[Author]

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