Welcome, the Apocolypse!
It’s official. Hell hath frozen over and pigs are flying overhead. The Windsor Star has just published an article by James Howard Kunstler, and it takes up 2/3 of a page nonetheless!?!?
Farewell suburbia
Author predicts oil shortage will fuel demise of the middle class
The fog of cluelessness that hangs over North America about the gathering global oil crisis and its ramifications seems to thicken by the hour. One reason for all the fog is that the key part of the story is so broadly misunderstood — namely, that it’s not about running out of oil. It’s about how the complex systems we depend on for everyday life begin to destabilize as the global demand for oil starts to outstrip the supply.
James Howard Kunstler, Special to The Windsor Star
Published: Friday, May 02, 2008
- Read the rest here
Tags: pedestrian, relocalization, urban sprawl
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There is no doubt that making such a drastic change in our thinking, in our culture will be difficult.
Rising oil prices, increasing climate change, and dealing with these new realities will force us to.
There is a big push here in Toronto and in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Horseshoe Region to make that transition and make public transportation the dominate mode of travel.
The key to making public transportation (subways, streetcars, buses) work and cost effective requires high density.
Toronto has identified 5 “mini-downtowns” in each of it’s buroughs (Scarborough, North York, Midtown, Downtown, and Etobicoke) where the City will require an increase in density to 400 people / jobs per hectare. This means trippling the densities of Etobicoke, quadruppling Scarborough, and doubling North York.
Perhaps Windsor should adopt a plan / goal to double it’s density in the downtown core. Let’s try 225 people / jobs per hectare.
Just a thought.
Density IS the only “Silver Bullet” that our illustrious city councilors must covet if they want to move our city forward. We have some pretty obvious “mini-downtowns” or Main Streets in Windsor that need attention; Sandwich, Walkerville, Old South (Grand Marais and Dominion) and Old Riverside. Unfortunately, according to recent census data, all these areas have experienced a 10% reduction in residents.
Our sprawlvision is taking its toll on our cities sustainability.
I was able to sit in on an ITE luncheon conference in Hamilton where they discussed their Transportation Master Plan updates, and an aggressive approach to a public transit system was a key point in the presentation.
He even mentioned our web site, although he got it backward and called us downscale
James Howard getting space in our daily is pretty cool however, on a day dominated by DRIC stories I hope people take the time to read it.
It was a surprise finding this article at 5:30 AM on Friday morning and even a greater surprise that it was the Windsor Star publishing it! As I said before, I don’t see the Windsor Star as a great “ideas” newspaper! I purchase and read the Star every day but it only takes me a half hour or so to do so. But several hours to get through the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star, also on a daily basis. But I never purchase the weekend Star because it is basically fluff stuff that is found it! It’s the Globe and Torstar on the weekends! I find the Windsor Star just to “local,” with no sense of being connected to the larger world.
I live in RSSs feeds from other newspapers! Which I find are really addressing the issues of their cities of urban sprawl, sustainability et al in relation to what other cities are pursuing also with the changing times.
I give the Star credit for its daringness in publishing Kunstler’s article but wonder how many in Windsor and region will read it and maybe personally act or think on what is written. I doubt if anyone on city council will read it, they are in a cyclical denial mode of what is really happening around them just by their current decisions of arena, big box, widening every road they can think of etc.
I think that the Star can go along way in embarrassing our city council by publishing even more articles like the above and what other cities are really getting done or addressing in these changing times and show just how bankrupt this city administration really is in its late 1970’s thinking. As I said before, flying/driving or taking the train into Windsor and having to set your watch back ten to twenty years!
Sorry! Its just not the city’s administration but our “local” developers that lack imagination or creativity but the Windsor Star also.
That is why Scale Down exists!
Great article by Kunstler. I’m sure everyone that is regularly on here has read it, but for those reading who haven’t, Kunstler’s The Long Emergency is very enlightening given the reality of world and local events these days.
Another book I would highly recommend is Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature by Douglas Farr. It is filled with practical and implementable ideas that can be applied to Windsor’s context.
Hopefully that book is in the library system, R.Y. I’d hate to think the powers-that-be would be eliminating books like this to undermine our re-urbanization efforts
Kunstler’s first foray into critiquing the (sub)urban landscape, The Geography Of Nowhere is one of the first books I recommend on the subject. His biting wit and satire normally wakes the reader up pretty quick to the perils of sub-urban investment.
Sorry Chris, I just checked the library catalogue and the book is not there in the system. You can always ask a librarian if the book can be purchased for the system, they do it all the time for citizens.
It was the geography of nowehere that really gelled my perspective of what was really going on in our cities. I still like refering to all those wasting they’re time and money on infotainment and recreational shopping as sleepwalkers..
Nice to see that Thom Hunt will be our planner for Windsor as he has stated openly that he would like to build on our core areas and to promote and design walkable communities.
Let us all hope that the city allows him to do just that.
Reading the article today about Thom Hunt’s appointment, which is good news, several quotes reminded me of something that I just read in Planetizen recently.
Thom said; “We want to bring planning more to neighbourhoods. Focus on them and how their neighbourhoods can change.” and, “What makes individual quality of life better is by doing the small things (like converting oneway streets back in twoway streets–my comment).” and “Are various amenities provided in your neighbourhood (I asked the same question in my posting to the blog Jane Jacobs Walk) what types of needs do residents have and how can you provide them.”
The Planetizen article: http://www.planetizen.com/node/30934
A Reminder to the City: Neighborhoods Are Building Blocks of Civic Life
“Neighborhoods — their habits, their participants, and their values — are what create and define value in a city and in a home. Cities need to embrace this fact if they want to preserve values and retain residents….”
…”Small and Tangible Details
Such seemingly small bore details of everyday life are what cities - mayors and their staffs - really ought be paying attention to. They - and not interest rates and securitization schemes - constitute the mortar that holds in place appraisals, realtor perspectives, underwriting guidelines, and the sensibility of home equity loans. They - more so than zoning and design guidelines - are what should be the basis for how a city planning department actualizes housing and economic development strategies in a cohesive way. These are the details that matter, in real ways even more than traditional planning. What generates value is the aggregation of people who choose who they want to be with and under what circumstances. This is what should - and not always does - shape policy. This is unfortunate as it is these elements of commonwealth that tell us a great deal about markets — perhaps even something about cultural preservation and the layered work of building community — and the appropriate role for cities and even federal policy in such matters.
What does scare me is at the end of the article when the Star states; “Another task Hunt looks forward to is developing the huge tract of annexed lands from Tecumseh in the former Sandwich South township–a blank canvas he envisions as having a huge potential for developing his ideas for walkable community.”
That is a huge tract of land to consider and I ask can Windsor at this time and in the near future, afford to develop that land and sustain it well into the future, regardless if it is a walkable community, everybody else will have to drive there. In the future will there be schools, hospitals, a library and roads located in that area and where will the money come from. Under Windsor’s current economic outlook that is the last piece of land I would be looking at at this time for development. Let it grow and become a nature area for about ten years or more.
Book recommendation — I’m currently reading Natural Capitalism by the Lovins brothers and Paul Hawkin (of the Rocky Mountain Institute). Not necessarily urban focused, but does an excellent job of discussing 1) why we need to change and 2) how we can change. That second point is often a matter overlooked — everyone can preach doom and gloom but very few (IMO) have the ability to actually coalesce a solution. This book would be right up Mark’s alley — very focused on how technology and society can fix the problems that are impacting us right now. (This book was actually quoted quite often in Chris Turner’s The Geography of Hope)
Lovins is an interesting dude. Quirky as any pseudo-godlike engineer would be. His techonolgical remedies for our ills is what keeps me from reading him too much, however.
He is the guy whoe brought us the hypercar in the late ’80s. I think you all know where I stand with introducing these types of vehicles into the urban environment!
They’re actually not brothers. Amory and Hunter Lovins used to be husband-and-wife, but now they’re co-collaborators at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Oops — my bad. Next time I won’t skip the bio section of a book
The airports land comments sound like a legacy project. its a blank canvas for Thom to paint on. We need to change that mindet.
We need to get across that his true legacy will be in how he repairs existing neighborhoods
I spoke with Thom briefly in the hallway at council and his comments reminded me why we shouldn’t go off half cocked. The costco badlands were the result of Windsor Amalgamated already zoned lands from sandwich. Our city took them over already rezoned and site planned. It wasn’t our planning dept. that created that disaster
I told Thom that I really wanted to improve design guidelines in Windsor and he said that dealing with zoning in Windsor should come first and design guidelines were second. That this was the better strategic order to achieve our goals.
I want us to meet with planning and understand this better. The different groups in windsor need to agree on a strategy and stick to it. It looks bad when the CAW environmental group, the CEA, Scaledown etc… contradit each other.
I’ve always said that I’m tired of these issues being the domain of leftist groups. I believe these issues belong to the mainstream and I hope to be a part of moving them there
I promise to report on everything I learn so it can be debated in the hopes that we can agree on a course of action
Looking forward to it Mark.