The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome
Day Brown
nuclear family home is not sustainable. But he comes at it from the
upscale hoi paloi to see what would work for them, and what mite work
for urban areas, which I've largely argued are obsolete in an era when
broadband telecommuting, FED-X, and all the other parts of urban
infrastructure support business needs, can be had in rural areas.
He writes of the economic stress on upscale scenic mountain or beach
front communities. Given lagging commodity prices, the vast flat and
boring agribusiness tracts aint doing so well either. But there is a
middle ground, too hilly for agribusiness, but not scenic enough for
land speculators & housing bubbles which is widely dispersed between the
Rockies and Appalatcha.
But I agree with Wasik, the suburban cul de sac is a dinosaur, the oil
they left us is running out, and its time for a new life form, new life
style that does not have such huge appetites for energy and is faster
and more nimble to adjust to ecological changes.
Time was, when clans could do this. The grandparents had 9-12 kids, the
2nd generation had 5-8, and by the time you get to the 3rd, its a 100 or
more. But now, the whole clan, 3, or even 4 generations, is only a
dozen, and it no longer has the pool of energy and investment to draw on
to build a new enterprise.
From GW Bush on down, the power structure was full of men who were
fronted the money to get started by the family. But now, if those in
congress retired as often before senility as formerly, you'd see the
lack of new blood from successful entrepreneurs, who out of the sense of
noblesse oblige take up public service rather than fucking them over.
Agreed there is a decline in morals, but those who rant most about it
are mostly hypocrites. The dirty little secret is that America was truly
successful at exporting its lifestyle, and now there's not enough global
resources to support everyone that way.
Its fine for the upscale set to invest 30% of the house in systems that
reduce energy consumption, but for everyone else, the cost of the house
and the carbon footprint is rising too fast for them to keep up when
they are trying to get by on stagnant wage levels and rising healthcare
costs to boot. Like T-Rex, the nuclear family house was big, impressive,
but an energy hog, and now its going extinct.
The fastest growing census bureau demographic is the "X-urb", people who
got the fuck outta dodge and invested in McMansions in rural areas. This
in turn left more empty houses in urban areas, and so we see whole
neighborhoods being abandoned, with formerly upscale units being divided
into apartments. All over the Western World, the homeless arent because
they have taken over abandoned property.
But now with the global economic crash, corporations are closing down,
and whole cities are becoming dead ends. The next step, which we've seen
before after the fall of Rome, is the re-emergence of the medieval rural
village where a few hundred had enuf land, pasture, and woodlot to heat
their homes and raise enuf food. But along with that came the emergence
of the manor hall, a single large structure that provided greater
security from roving gangs as well as the one fire that kept them all
warm much more efficiently.
Which is where many are headed; the minimum per capita carbon footprint.
wis...@yahoo.com
wrote:
Feudal period may have been the most relaxed period in our history. No
time clocks, your only obligation was to plant and reap. No chance for
advancement, no stress!
ted
Day
> Feudal period may have been the most relaxed period in our history. No
> time clocks, your only obligation was to plant and reap. No chance for
> advancement, no stress!
We see the images of the medieval peasants you refer to... wearing
tailored jackets, blouses, and pants with the women wearing long skirts
that had as much fabric as a toga.
Its not hard to live well if you are not carving marble all the time for
the power elite to put their names on. We dont do much of that any more,
but just how much of the cost of management goes into luxury high rises
for executive suites and penthouses as well as the limos in the parking
ramp is an interesting question.
But au contraire, Gies, 'Life in a Medieval Village' says ambitious men
could, and did, run away from serfdom to the large trading towns, whose
general policy was to accept anyone who didnt make trouble. They also
mention runaways joining bandit gangs. Robin Hoods were all over. Lords
who got too exploitive saw people leave to banditry, other villages, or
the trading towns.
Leaving the village in the hands of the incompetent. Sounds familiar,
with competent engineers and professionals being able to move to any
other economy anywhere, driven out by corruption, demagoguery, and
incompetence.
NW Arkansas, along I-540, is now developing into a regional cul-de-sac.
From Fayetteville and the U of AR to the MO border, there's a string of
10,000 pop towns, shopping malls, and industrial zones along I-540. All
the usual infrastructure support for high tech business, but no urban
core. No urban crime or urban drugs, or urban traffic jams.
Just 10 miles east or west of the freeway, along the same kind of steep
two lane blacktop seen in new car ads, there's lotsa cheap land in the
forest to build a comfortable house for less than 200K. The area is so
squeeky clean it looks like the set of "the Truman Show". Moreover, it
now has a net immigration from CA and other high tech regions all the
way to Bangalore of engineers and programmers. Who like to hunt & fish.
Its a kind of trickle down that works. Current unemployment rate: 5%. It
looks like an example of what Machiavelli saw in the German City States,
who each local government competed in a free market for competent
craftsmen who could, and did, vote with their feet. Or now, a U-haul or
air plane ticket.