Next: The geography of somewhere

What about the ugliness that housing in NYC has become? There are parts of Manhattan and Williamsburgh, Brooklyn that look like Tim Burton's Gotham-lack of scale, no light, shoddy workmanship, no open space. We weren't meant to live like that. It's one thing to decry the sterility of the suburbs. But it doesn't address the alienation and impersonality of people living stacked up 15 floors high. As someone who lives in one of the last car-friendly low scale one family house parts of Brooklyn, there's nothing more infuriating than a developer buying a 1-family house and putting up an apartment building that taxes every service and throws the entire scheme of the neighborhood out of whack. If you think mass density living is a great idea, take a look at any housing project in America. Are those places you would want to spend 5 minutes visiting, much less living there?

Prediction-no matter what all these pols say today, we are going to be drilling in ANWR, off the coasts, and converting coal into gas. For too long, we've had no energy policy.We have to start being adults about this, unless the image of our President begging whoremongering Saudi princes is something you wish to see again.

"You can't put in light rail overnight; that process takes years."

no but you can increase the use of busses to transport people.

People won't move in from the suburbs as much as the work will move out to them. One of the things blocking any serious density program is the stubborn fact that people of different races tend to prefer living apart from one another.

"Manzi suggests that we can wait until the lasr possible moment-"

What if we already have? Research into the energy problem should have begun in the '70's. Anyone recall lining up at the gas pumps? And instead of our govenment putting money into alternative energy research, we got the Regan era of conspicuous consumtion and Mr. James "Jesus is coming back soon anyway, so why not strafe the land" Watts. I think that is when ANWR became the tug of war that it is today.

Even if we drill in ANWR, do we really believe that will solve all our energy problems? And please don't give me the Republican "We can use that energy while we research renewable energy" line. Once we get our paws on ANWR (and then the sacred Native American land in the Black Hills won't be far behind)complacency will set in just as it did in the '80's, when we got into bed with "them OPECers" to quote Gallagher. Do we know how long the oil in ANWR will last once big business gets it's way?

And if you think that it is the US government doing us a favor by drilling ANWR so we can all drive our SUV's a little longer, you would be sadly mistaken. I'll bet you'd be hard pressed to find a government representative of any sort that doesn't own stock in car manufacturing and oil. And obviously, commodities, with the price of corn and wheat going through the roof. Even if they don't own stock, they all accept "campaign" contributions.

There is no reason we can't have renewable energy today. Simply stop allowing big business to buy the patents to renewable energy technology and put the plans on their shelves. Does anyone remember a movie about this? It was about an inventor (played by Jeff Bridges, I think) who developed a car that used very little gas and how the car companies and big oil fought against it. I never saw the whole movie, but if I could remember the name, I'd sure be watching it now.

That was unfair to Manzi. He makes the very reasonable point that because we don't know the timing (maybe it won't be 2025), and because technology is always improving, don't try to do a 2008-era fix of something that can be better fixed with 2025-era technology. He also notes that 'experts' have been wrong in predicting when things peak out. Manzi is conservative because he believes in markets instead of government solutions.

Gentrification is no solution, I can tell you that from personal experience. We live in one of those "small towns" on the edge of the city - a charming place with trees, sidewalks, local schools, etc.

However, we also have a terrible push to "clean up the city," which means zoning out the auto body shop, the little old beauty parlor, the hardware store, the small machine shop - in favor of tea shops, restaurants, and antique stores. We lost a small grocery store near our house, and no other grocer would move in, because the store was "too small" (compared to the giant new megastores.) With gentrification comes snobbish attitudes and a lack of understanding about how viable small and sustainable communities need *all kinds* of businesses, not just cutesy-fatootsy ones.

As far as people moving back into the cities, that's simply not going to happen as long as most middle income people can't afford private school tuitions. In an economic downturn, tuition is often one of the discretionary expenses which are the first to go.

Crime is an issue, even with inner-city gentrification. It's no coincidence that most urban renewal is done by gays (mostly gay men), who are less afraid to live in these areas than middle-class families with young children. When our kids were driving to work down in the city, I told them to stop at the gas station in a nearby gay area if they had car trouble - simply because it was safe(r). In fact, I would think that a fair # of middle-class families would be priced out of the most beautiful rehabbed areas of my own city - largely because these are also the gay areas. Nor does the recent housing bubble pop seem to have affected the prices in these areas, that much.

However, if someone could figure out a way to have safe, academically excellent schools *in* the rehabbed city neighborhoods, it would go a long way to help buck the trend of decreasing population densities.

This leads to the corollary problem with public transit in the US - it's seen as the "poor peoples'" way to get around, rather than the ordinary way (as in Europe.) Being frank - riding public transit in the US *is* a stressful experience - and I say that as a big light rail booster. My daughter commutes on the train to college, and she always has to be alert for some mentally ill or drunk person, or pay attention when the police come on board, looking for someone who committed a crime in a station parking lot. These are unacceptable tradeoffs for many, and they simply won't live there, or take the train.

"Manzi is conservative because he believes in markets instead of government solutions."

Or, is he conservative because he does not believe in caring about the future? The final straw in bouncing me out of the Republican camp into the Independent category was Iraq, but it was the national debt that started me down that road. I like less taxes. Who doesn't? But, my base economic belief is in fiscal and personal responsibility. Starting with Reagan, the first conservative Republican president, what I see is the debt growing and growing. I do not find this to be "conservative", but apparently it is the official Republican way now.

From my perspective, it looks like Manzi is conservative because he is willing to pass today's problems onto our children.

Steve

RJohnson: Thanks! That movie title has been driving me crazy for years because I'm the only one around here that remembers it. Now, if you know the plot of the movie "Sorcerer", you win the Obscure Movie Emmy.

Jack: People can't wait for things to be "fixed" for another 15 to 20 years. There're such words as "upgrade', "improvement", and "re-tooling" for a reason. If we had used the technology available in the 1970's, the infrastructure would have already been in place and easily improved upon by today's technology. If the medical profession had waited for better technology everytime it was faced with a new disease, there'd be an awful lot of dead people now who didn't need to be. (We won't get into the crap they churn out now and call medicine.)

The problem, as far as I can figure it, seems to be that our entire economy suddenly depends on oil costing too much and if you want a better solution and clean air to breathe you are unpatriotic. I guess I don't see how wanting better cleaner energy makes one less conservative, what makes you less conservative is taking a quick-fix approach and hoping the problem just goes away in your life-time, to hell with your grandchilden, let them get theirs.

As far as the mass-exodus from suburb to city, it depends on how bad things do get. Historically, when there was a famine, didn't people head to the city to find food? Won't they do the same if they can no longer afford to drive to work? I really don't see manufacturing jobs moving to the suburbs anymore than they have because there are precious few of those left and a lack of fuel is going to make it hard for the company to ship the goods it does produce. Won't they want to stay in the cities too where rail and shipping are already centered? As far as non-manufacturing jobs, its awfully hard to have this glorious "service-economy" that we were promised, out in the suburbs were there are fewer people to serve. Makes for bad tips, doncha know.

Actually the problem is very simple to solve. Congress gets told in no uncertain terms that the price of gas is going to be $1.00 a gallon in two years and if they want to be back in office, they will figure out how.

Perhaps some day conservative will once again mean someone who believes in conserving. Wouldn't that be great?

Toles, as usual, has the funniest take on this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_sketch.html?name=Toles&date=05132008

Actually the problem is very simple to solve. Congress gets told in no uncertain terms that the price of gas is going to be $1.00 a gallon in two years and if they want to be back in office, they will figure out how.

Pure genius, Chuck. Put 'em to work on perpetual motion while you're at it.

Today, seeds for new crops come from a pretty limited number of sources, especially for the large scale farmers. Up until the 40's and 50's fertilizing was done with manure and local sources. Now it is chemical.

This is what Wendell Berry's been preaching about for decades now - smaller, organic, local. CSAs are doing it already.

I think I'll second Mr. Barrett's conclusion that real cities have trains. Or at least I'll say that any place that makes you put $15,000 down (the price of a used car) to see most of its places isn't a real city, but a glorified town.

Manzi has written a response to Prof. Deneen.
http://theamericanscene.com/2008/05/19/more-peak-oil

It is a battle between liberty and central planning, between the rule of common men and the rule of philosopher kings. Read your Hayek.

Do government bureaucrats know more about energy than the energy industry and energy consumers? I believe that people in government are less intelligent and less knowledgeable than people in business. There are millions of producers and consumers in industry, versus maybe hundreds or thousands of bureaucrats; furthermore, businesses and consumers have an incentive to profit/save money. Do you really believe a few hundered bureaucrats, whose incentives are advancement in the bureaucracy, CYA, and make polticians happy, will act more positively than millions of producers and consumers who are acting for self-interest?

And that's assuming they are somehow better than everyone else, that the angels of society end up in government. People in government are exactly like everyone else and act in their self-interest. Lobbyists, bribery, political pandering. Just look at the disgusting farm bill that just passed. If we had a similar energy policy, the government would make it very restrictive for oil companies to drill, so we'd have artificially high prices. The industry would lobby Congress for help, and they'd end up giving tax breaks and subsidies to the oil companies! We'd end up with less energy and we'd be paying extra high prices, while the politicians pandered to voters and told them we need more regulations, which would lead to more power and donations for the politicians...

Like the people who claim that communism works if we just do it right, people like Deneen ignore the mountain of evidence of government failure. He compares the imperfect market with perfect government. I compare the imperfect market, with its occassional failure, to the imperfect government, with its almost total failure in generating the predicted outcome.

Suburbia: Once again, I find myself wondering whether there’s some element of wish-fulfillment in these predictions that peak oil shall inevitably kill off suburbia and the “car culture”. I like downtowns, & walkable cities, and living close to work; but I nevertheless realize that (say) high-MPG cars might indefinitely extend suburbia’s life expectancy even with peak oil. If nothing else, buying a new car would seem to be cheaper than buying a new house.

drilling in ANWR, off the coasts, and converting coal into gas.

If we’re going to go that route (i.e., increasing liquid fuel supply), tar sands & oil shale seem a better way to go. EROEI > 1 (in contrast to coal-to-liquids), and much larger supply than ANWR & continental shelf combined (*).

stop allowing big business to buy the patents to renewable energy technology and put the plans on their shelves.

I’ve heard this allegation before, and, like stories of the 200 MPG “miracle carburetor” (**), it smells like an urban legend. Do you have any proof? Note that patent terms are limited; even if “big business” did indeed follow such a strategy, it wouldn’t suppress renewables indefinitely.

Methinks the explanation is simpler: until quite recently, oil was cheap enough that investing in renewable energy wasn’t cost-effective. Restrictions on nuclear power didn’t help. If big business is trying to hinder renewables, one would think they’d have somehow wind & solar prices from decreasing over the last few decades.

(*) E.g., contrast conventional oil resources (eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0401.html) with oil shale (ostseis.anl.gov/guide/oilshale/index.cfm). See here:

theoildrum.com/node/3839

for tar sands & oil shale EROEIs.

(**) snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

Also, this is Manzi's response, not the link you have above, which is to his original piece, which was on both NRO and the American Scene.

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/05/19/more-peak-oil

Looks like Manzi owned Deneen with his response.

Hardly. There are plenty of those who support Obama or some other populist candidate who would disagree with the claims made about economic growth.

Some of the moralizing about how great European cities are is growing a little wearisome, frankly. These are cities that arose during a completely different era. It wasn't as if the Europeans had any grand foresight. Their cities arose organically during a time when cities essentially had to be built that way.

Well, I surely don't want it to be a "moralizing" issue but some of it is very intentional. When my mom was still working at an American army base in Germany (great job, best of both worlds for her since she spoke German and English) I spent a summer over there with her and I have to tell ya, it was great. This was in the late 60's/early 70's and the beautiful small town where she had her apartment was your classic European village. The churches were at the center of town, every Saturday the farmers brought in local produce to sell in the town square. The local family-owned bakery, dairy stores and restaurants were a delight, architectural landmarks have been carefully preserved, and from mom's apartment windows I saw a beautiful field of poppies and other wildflowers and a pathway leading up to an medieval castle, complete with moat.

Every now and then I'd take the train to work with mom and spend the day at the base. The rail system was, of course, excellent and riding through the lovely countryside was a treat. Europeans have made definite borders delineating where cars can and cannot go and on Sundays people walked just for the pleasure of walking and conversing. About the only sounds one heard Sunday mornings was the pealing of the church bells. And yes, even then gas prices were high in Europe. I can honestly say that for those three months not having access to a car scarcely bothered me. And one thing that really struck me was that the borders of the town blended naturally and easily into the beautiful countryside.

America, of course, is much, much bigger than most European countries and our suburban lifestyle has pretty much hooked us to our cars. But I'm guessing we're going to have to do something about that if the price of fuel keeps going up. And to be fair, some very innovative architectural projects are being undertaken to develop communities that are charming and viable where people will actually learn again what it is to live in a "neighborhood" setting. The University of Notre Dame is engaging in a project like this.

MZ Forrest: I doubt you'll see the continued outflow of jobs to the suburbs. There are two variables in particular, the cost of moving and the cost of working. The first factor tends to limit the ability to attract lower end workers into a market. The second factor effects the sustainable wage. At the lower end of the scale this becomes more interesting. ...

This is a long way to get to the point that the urban environment may be the only place where it makes sense for lower and middle dual income households.

Where I live, there has been a great outflow of jobs from the "inner city" to industrial parks, etc. in the far-out suburbs, even across county lines to formerly-rural, now booming-suburban counties. Most of these jobs are *not* aimed at lower-wage workers, but instead are technology, business, banking, finance, where most of the workers are highly skilled (and well-paid.)

These workers *already* live in these suburbs; drawn by less expensive (and larger) houses; good schools; what they perceive as a more "small town," less "urban" life. The companies are just moving to where the workers are. This is the reality of exurban sprawl.

Actually, rather large areas of Europe WERE built from scratch. Some of our readers forget that we carpet-bombed vast swathes of German civilian cities and villages during World War II. Though they don't really begrudge us the fact, especially since we financed rebuilding, it is worth remembering. Many of those rustic quaint buildings are actually fairly new, at least above their foundations.

It is true that Europe's scale is smaller. We can't replicate that, our density is simply lower. What we can do over time is collapse large suburban outposts and even collections of small towns into more concentrated "villages" with walkable grocery stores and health clinics and other amenities. If this massive oil collapse hits us I think many of those McMansion lots out there will remain uninhabited anyway - they should be converted to walking trails, gardens, farm fields, grocery stores, and public squares. You might still have to drive to and from work. But if you had everything you needed right there, and shared a minibus to go to work in the morning, it'd still be workable.

Christine, you described the European village lifestyle perfectly. The villages really are idyllic - all the country beauty you could ask for, on a walkable scale. And in general folks are much healthier for walking and the economy's much better off for being more localized (ie they grow their food in those pretty fields a stone's throw from the village.) The pace of things is generally more relaxed - you put in your time at work, then you come home and garden and cook and eat together and breathe and watch the sun go down.

It IS affordable - but you have to realize, these people are not paying for education or health care (well, of course they are, in taxes, but the cost is spread out over a lifetime instead of concentrated around a medical crisis for example,) and those who do not have cars (a perfectly pragmatic choice) are also not paying vehicle maintenance, car payments, or insurance. Many own their own homes outright, but savings rates are higher than ours regardless.

Is their system perfect? Of course not! Europe has its own troubles, such as integrating immigrants, a higher unemployment rate, and an aging demographic. But it seems more likely to weather an oil crisis gracefully, at least. Also they have guaranteed four weeks of paid vacation. There is something to be said for THAT, even if their system is not fully transferable to the U.S.

Here's another twist to categorize under "my life is a soap opera." My mother just had a seizure. No idea why, yet, she just got out of the ER and is due to see a neurologist later in the week. In the meantime, and possibly for a very long time to come, she is banned for driving. She is fortunate that she has family, and friends, and that Little Rock, Arkansas has some semblance of a public bus system - it won't get everywhere, but it'll get you around. Still, can you imagine being told tomorrow you may no longer drive? It will have a huge impact on her life - getting to work will take creativity, and if her friends are late, she will be late. She's going to have to curtail my kid brother's after-school activities.

Well, say another prayer for her and for us. Hopefully she is okay. As much as I'd like to leave Iraq early - I don't want it to be because my mother is not able to care for herself or for my little brother. He's the one I'm worried about, of course...