When a society is stressed, when it comes up against things that are hard to understand, you get a lot of delusional thinking. James Howard Kunstler More Quotes by James Howard Kunstler More Quotes From James Howard Kunstler We're living in a culture that doesn't believe in decorating buildings, or proportioning them properly. And they don't know how to do it anymore because they haven't been doing it for, you know, the better part of the century. James Howard Kunstler building believe culture Building places that are worth living in and worth caring about require a certain attention to detail, and of a particular kind of detail that we have forgotten how to design and assemble. And that involves the relationship of the buildings to each other, the relationship of the buildings to the public space, which in America, comes mostly in the form of the street. Because it's only the exceptional places in America that have the village square or the New England green. You know. The street is mostly the public realm of America. And we have to design these things so that they reward us. James Howard Kunstler design caring attention I have a new theory of history, which is certain things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. And suburbia seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was a special time and place in history, with special dynamics. And now, we're going to have to live with the consequences of that. And the consequences will be tragic. James Howard Kunstler suburbia tragic special Forget [Le Corbusier ]. Forget Modernism. Forget yesterdays' tomorrow. James Howard Kunstler tomorrow yesterday forget The ideas of [ Le Corbusier ] that actually found their way into practice were deeply destructive - for instance, the tower-in-a-park, which mutated into the vertical slums of the late 20th century. James Howard Kunstler practice way ideas In the decades to come, the successful places will tend to be the smaller traditional towns and cities with viable farming hinterlands. James Howard Kunstler towns cities successful Under the current high energy / high entropy regime, sustainable development is a joke. James Howard Kunstler regimes development energy In my view, suburbia in general has very poor prospects. I think it will only become devalued and probably more dangerous. It's chief characteristic was that it represented a living arrangement with no future - and that future is now here. James Howard Kunstler poor views thinking The industrial age is over. What follows will be life lived on a much smaller and finer scale. James Howard Kunstler scales age Consider how badly-built suburbia is. Many business buildings are not designed to outlast their tax depreciation periods, and the McHouses are made of particle board, vinyl siding, and stapled-on trim. A lot of suburbia will simply become the slums of the future. Most of the rest will be salvage or ruins. James Howard Kunstler ruins vinyl boards We are in for a fiesta of default, repossession, and distress selling of suburban property, much of which will lose its presumed usefulness and monetary value in an energy-scarce economy. James Howard Kunstler fiesta economy energy Most of suburbia will end up in three ways: ruins, slums, salvage yards for materials. James Howard Kunstler yards three way The fortunate and successful New Urbanists will be the ones who can find local infill projects in small towns and small cities associated with farming, water transport, (perhaps rail too) and water power. I do not believe personally that we will retrofit much of suburbia in the way many people wish we might. The capital won't be there, and I'm rather convinced that the population is headed down - though this will be a lagging effect, because even starving people have sex. James Howard Kunstler successful believe sex I was not a hard-liner against nuclear, because I viewed that as perhaps the only way we might keep the lights on another 25 years. But lately I am on board with Nicole Foss's argument that we will not have the capital or even the social cohesion to build anymore nuke plants. James Howard Kunstler cohesion light years Detroit right now is virtually abandoned at its core to the degree that a lot of what had been slums thirty years ago are now wildflower meadows. The rebuilding of Detroit will occur a much smaller scale. It remains to be seen what will become of Detroit's vast suburbs. James Howard Kunstler wildflowers degrees years We have to do commerce differently because the WalMart system of big box chain retail will soon die. This means rebuilding local main street economies (networks of local economic interdependency). James Howard Kunstler walmart rebuilding mean We have to grow our food differently because industrial farming will soon end. That means growing more food locally on smaller farms with more human attention. James Howard Kunstler growing attention mean The salient fact about the decades ahead is that we are entering a permanent global energy crisis and it will change everything about how we live. James Howard Kunstler entering energy facts The aggressive incoherence of our common surroundings can be described as entropy made visible. The way we have disposed things on the landscape leads us in the direction of disorder and death. They are categorically evil. These dispositions are destroying our only home-planet and other organisms that share it. They defeat our need to care about where we are and the things in place there. They prompt us to feel that civilization is not worth carrying on. They rob us of our identity and our will to live. These things are not about personal taste or style. James Howard Kunstler evil home civilization Eighty percent of everything ever built in America has been built in the last 50 years, and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy, and spiritually degrading. James Howard Kunstler depressing america years
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