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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] A Resilient Suburbia?

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] A Resilient Suburbia?
  • Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:20:52 -0700


Well it's been frustrating, trying to slog through all the confusion. I've
gone over that essay by Jeff Vail and some of the 275 comments from
readers, as well as Vail's own site article, "Suburbia--NOT resilient, but
with potential". He's a lawyer who's worked in intelligence and stuff.
http://www.jeffvail.net/

My reaction is he doesn't know what he's talking about. He's smart but all
theory, and is simply not involved himself in doing what he's talking
about.

In all fairness, he's talking about suburbia changing to become something
else post-peak, islands of self sufficiency more or less (and saying
they're better than dense cities, which isn't reassuring). In this he parts
company with Kunstler who writes them off as hopeless. I'm somewhere in
between. Trouble is, by the time suburbs realize there's a problem it's too
late. Learning self reliance has a serious learning curve. Developing a new
infrastructure without cheap fossil fuel in suburbs built for cars, without
industry or social organization, would take years and trillions of dollars
we don't have (and can't borrow). His ideas about food production are
frankly naive. In the Depression and Victory Gardens of WW II, half the
country was still rural and people still knew how to grow their food, how
to preserve it and - how to cook it. Sure people can learn, but back then
they always had folks close by to learn from. How much does the typical
suburbanite today know about making meals from scratch? Or cooking without
fossil fuel-fired stoves or microwaves? I'm not talking total breakdown of
the grid, just shortages and food and energy too expensive for most people.
Thing is, three generations back there was an infrastructure based largely
on rural communities and small homesteads, with walkable cities dependent
on the country and rail supplies. We don't have even that infrastructure to
go back to today.

Well, we do what we can.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are
stupider than that.
- George Carlin


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 12/29/2008 at 7:17 PM Tradingpost wrote:

>Please see
>A Resilient Suburbia? 3: Weighing the Potential for Self-Sufficiency, at
>http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=78676
>
>That article prompted 275 comments on that website. This subject gets a
LOT
>more traction now than a few months ago. Few lists were talking about this
>when we started this list 6 years ago, partly out of the same concerns.
>
>I think I'll toss out my own criticism on our list here, unless someone
>beats me to it. Or I will anyway ;-)
>
>
>paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>






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