Speaking of Pop!Tech

I was just visiting James Howard Kunstler's website, first to look at his Eyesore of the Month award, and then reading his scathing commentary about American culture, suburbia, and politics. I was impressed with him at Pop!Tech, enjoyed his book about architecture and city planning, and recommend him highly to you. Conservatives, you'll probably find little to like, but I think this man can see with a penetrating eye the way Americans have numbed ourselves and uglified our living spaces, leading to further numbness and isolation and a retreat to television and away from civics. He believes pretty passionately that a land full of places that are not worth caring about [e.g. strip malls and Target parking lots and subdivisions of McMansions] will soon be a nation and a way of life not worth defending. Even if you disagree with what he says, he writes vividly and with a fervent passion, so you if you choose not to hear his political views you could read an entertaining and vivid narrative about his recent hip-replacement surgery.

Comments

[TPB, Esq.]

I've always enjoyed Kunstler, but I hated how he managed to deconstruct planning so well and offered little that was usable in lieu of the current McMansion/large lot zoning paradigm (same with Jane Jacobs). Peter Calthorpe is another writer/land use guy who has some interesting views (see The Next American Metropolis); Myron Orfeld, former mayor (I think former) of Minn-St. Paul has a great book called Metropolitics that also addresses the issue.

[RLD]

He looks to me like a typical guy who has lived almost his entire life in the Northeast, yet decides to bash the South as a vast suburbia. That's fine (if incorrect), but if I were to make similarly broad and negative statements about, say, New York City, wouldn't I simply be deemed a rube of some sort?

As for Charleston and Savannah, they may be two Southern cities that have maintained much of their character, but at what cost? It's extremely cost prohibitive to live in either place these days for many of the reasons that Kunstler seems to praise.

[Haystack]

Sherry, have you checked out David Sucher's work? He's written a book about integrating New Urbanist principles into every day city planning, called City Comforts. You can find his Typepad blog here.