Restructuring the American Dream - 2008 article

[HollandPark]

Undeveloped land goes for around US$500 to $2000 per acre after you get out ~10 miles from the city.

Closer to the city it gets more expensive and can go up to US$20,000 per acre. So you can see why many people move away from the city...land is much more affordable.

 

The funny thing is that this area of our state is one of the more expensive areas. Other states such as CA and Florida have much higher land and home prices.

 

Obviously, our incomes here are lower than those who live in CA and Florida, and I suspect much lower than HK.

 

Interesting statistics.

America looks very cheap !

[drbubb]

Build costs here are probably: HK$1,500 psf: say US$200 psf.

What is really expensive is the land, which is very scarce, expecially in Central HK.

Hence the need to find cheaper land and connect it by public transport.

 

That's what happened at Lantau: A remote island, larger than HK, and with few people living

on it, had Hk's new international airport built right next to it. (Note: the International Herald

has called HK's airport the "best in the world" - I glance out my window and look down on it.)

A mass transit line was built to connect the airport to central HK. That allow people to get

here easily by MTR. They have taken a tiny village here in Tung Ching, and are turning it

into a new town of over 150,000 people, with more coming as it develops.

 

..

 

As mentioned in a prior post, Lantau island is an ecological paradise in some respects.

So here we have a great connection to a vibrant city, with monestaries and nature's riches

within easy walking and hiking distance.

 

Land here will become more valuable as more people move here, and/or as jobs move closer

to this beautiful island.

 

2/

Another comparison : Build costs in Germany are maybe:

Eur.1,000 - 1,200 psm = hk$ 1,350 psf = us$ 170 psf

(Berlin Properties, a company run by a GEI poster is buying property near Berlin's new airport

at auction at prices as cheap as Eur.600 - 700; below build cost, with "land for free".)

 

How can costs be so cheap in the US?

Must be cheap materials, and low cost labor where you are. Any manufacturing there?

 

My interest is more than idle curiousity. I plan to buy US Builder shares within 2008, and maybe

actual US property within 2009. I am leaning towards Florida, and pondering where else to buy.

[frizzers]

Ace, those images are of UK suburbs!

 

You have five acres and you say that is a suburb. 5 acres is unheard of in a UK suburb.

 

Bubb, I am not disputing that Lantau is beautiful, idyllic, ecological etc etc . But it is a different idyll to the one I and I think Ace were describing.

 

Kids playing in their back garden which doubles as a small holding with chickens running about and dogs and so on. It's the idyll which, taken to extremes, programmes like The Waltons would exploit - and it's not one that fits in with the equally idyllic, but different Lantau. You can't open your back door in Tung Chung and step out into a small holding with dogs and chickens running around. You've got to get in a lift, then on a bus, then on a train etc .

 

You could go into the Lantau wilderness and live there, but you would need some sort of transport, I dare say, to stay in touch - train would not be enough if you have a family. Are there schools there? Are there the building or farming restrictions there? If not, why don't people inhabit it more? If so, it will only be a place you visit, or go to as a reaction against modern life, but you can't really live there and expand in a way that you can in the States because of the fact that there is so much more land in the US. if you can do all these things, then great - buy as much land as you can and apply for planning permission

 

It's late and I'm tired and I haven't expressed myself as well as I would like, but I hope you catch my drift.

[AceofKY]

How can costs be so cheap in the US?

Must be cheap materials, and low cost labor where you are. Any manufacturing there?

 

My interest is more than idle curiousity. I plan to buy US Builder shares within 2008, and maybe

actual US property within 2009. I am leaning towards Florida, and pondering where else to buy.

 

Well, obviously land costs are cheap here because there's so much of it. Labor costs - especially in the construction and agricultural fields - have been held down by a continuous influx of Hispanic immigrants from Mexico. Material costs have been skyrocketing over the past few years. Construction costs have been increasing somewhere around 30 percent each year - mainly due to material costs. There used to be a lot of manufacturing in the area, and there is still some, but much of our manufacturing capacity has moved to places like China and Mexico. Why? Because they say labor is too expensive here (go figure). So you have manufacturers like Lexmark (one of our largest employers in the area), who have all their head office personnel and engineering still in Lexington, but all of their manufacturing now takes place overseas.

 

What to buy? I don't know. I wish I had that crystal ball. Jim Rogers says buy good farmland, and we have plenty of it here. Farmland prices are being driven up right now (even as home and commercial prices have stagnated) due to the high corn prices that have left the farmers flush with cash. I know a lawyer from my hometown of Owensboro a couple hours away. Back in the 90s he bought up a lot of farms in that area. This past year, he made more money on a single corn crop then he paid for the entire farms. And he is just the landowner which means he probably only gets ~1/3rd of the profit - the rest going to the farmer.

[AceofKY]

There's plenty of chickens and dogs around here.

I don't have much in the way of pictures. When you live here, you don't really think to take photographs of the countryside.

We raise sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes, okra, peppers, cabbage, etc. Also have several types of apple trees, 4 peach trees, and a couple cherry trees. Plenty of walnuts here, also, but they're too much work to eat. In fact, the name of our subdivision is "Walnut Meadows." It is a small neighborhood that is subdivided into 5 acre lots, bordered by farms on all sides. I have named my new LLC (set up to hold my investments and capture tax deductions) "Walnut Meadows Capital, LLC"

 

Here is a picture at our annual barbeque in May. That tractor was purchased with Rio Narcea profits:

 

Here are my two kids, Anna and William. They thoroughly enjoy wagon rides in the evening when I get home from work. We go see the local horses, chickens, cattle, and ducks. And I like the exercise. Unfortunately, it is too cold in January to do this:

 

 

I really enjoy living out here, but Bubb is correct that we use a lot of fuel. My question is, how can I conserve energy and still live in the country? Or will it still be possible in the future? Some ideas I have thought of:

* geothermal energy (common in KY - I design these systems for schools. Payback is a little long on a house, however, since we have very inexpensive electric rates at $0.05/kwhr)

* solar collectors (sometimes used to help heat hot water, but I'm waiting on the technology to mature enough to be able to economically sell power back to the grid)

* More fuel efficient vehicles (still waiting on this; hybrids aren't quite worth the money, yet)

* Use more firewood rather than burning propane for heat

Most of these will likely become more viable in the near future if energy costs continue to rise.

[drbubb]

...You can't open your back door in Tung Chung and step out into a small holding with dogs and chickens running around. You've got to get in a lift, then on a bus, then on a train etc .

 

You could go into the Lantau wilderness and live there, but you would need some sort of transport, I dare say, to stay in touch - train would not be enough if you have a family. Are there schools there? Are there the building or farming restrictions there? If not, why don't people inhabit it more? If so, it will only be a place you visit, or go to as a reaction against modern life, but you can't really live there and expand in a way that you can in the States because of the fact that there is so much more land in the US. if you can do all these things, then great - buy as much land as you can and apply for planning permission

 

The idyllic life in HK was/ is in Sai Kung.

25 years ago, one of my customers used to commute to Central by helicopter.

When it got easier to travel there, many people moved there, and it became less idyllic.

 

If cars are ever as expensive as helicopter, there will be many idyllic places near HK, and near

New York, and near London

 

My friends who live in the Idyllic Eden valley, have electricity, but no hot water.

Their water comes from a stream. They can drink it there, but prefer to filter it.

[drbubb]

I really enjoy living out here, but Bubb is correct that we use a lot of fuel. My question is, how can I conserve energy and still live in the country? Or will it still be possible in the future? Some ideas I have thought of:

* geothermal energy (common in KY - I design these systems for schools. Payback is a little long on a house, however, since we have very inexpensive electric rates at $0.05/kwhr)

* solar collectors (sometimes used to help heat hot water, but I'm waiting on the technology to mature enough to be able to economically sell power back to the grid)

* More fuel efficient vehicles (still waiting on this; hybrids aren't quite worth the money, yet)

* Use more firewood rather than burning propane for heat

Most of these will likely become more viable in the near future if energy costs continue to rise.

 

Beautiful photos*, Ace.

 

And it is good to see you are thinking of alternative energy.

I would urge you to spend even more time and effort pursuing those alternatives.

Oil prices in dollars may not stay as cheap as $100 much longer.

 

There are folks holding loads of dollars in Asia, and they may decide to unload them, and buy

commodities, if the dollar goes into freefall. With China holding $1 trillion dollars, and Japan holding

maybe half that- If you have to compete with them in buying your oil with dollars, they are going

to win. That is not a threat- it is simply the bald reality of it.

 

(Here's a little story about the day I realised that the Chinese would be impossible to compete with,

on a pure manufacturing-cost basis, for decades to come):

 

About 27 years ago, I was living in Hong Kong. I decided to take my then-girlfriend on a short holiday

to Guangzhou (the old Canton), where she was born. We stayed in a beautiful, almost-new hotel called

the White Swan, and spent an enjoyable day or two walking all around the older parts of the city.

 

By HK standards, it was very cold, and I can recall being able to see my breath, when I exhaled.

Most people in those days would still dress in puffy "Mao-jackets" especially on a cold winter's day.

As dusk approached, I was eager to get back to the warmth of our hotel. We turned a corner, and were

almost run over by a man wearing a faded blue Mao jacket. He was pushing a small cart loaded

with coal.

 

I turned to Rachel, my girl friend, and said, "Well, at least he has some coal to keep his home warm."

 

She looked surprised. "That's not for heating," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if it should have

been obvious to me. "That's for cooking. They have no heat in their homes during the winter."

 

How is America going to compete with 1.3 billion people, where half of them still see that as "normal."

 

 

= =

 

*If you want to win over Frizzers, then the best way is to show a few photos of smiling kids, preferably

with some wild chickens running around. He's the only London-city-dweller whom I know, who keeps

a chicken coup in his backyard. Presumeably, he likes his kids to have fresh eggs.

And there's nothing at all wrong with that.

 

I will take a camera on our day-trip to Peng Chau island today, and if I see a free range chicken,

she will not escape my camera.

[frizzers]

= =

 

*If you want to win over Frizzers, then the best way is to show a few photos of smiling kids, preferably

with some wild chickens running around. He's the only London-city-dweller whom I know, who keeps

a chicken coup in his backyard. Presumeably, he likes his kids to have fresh eggs.

And there's nothing at all wrong with that.

 

I will take a camera on our day-trip to Peng Chau island today, and if I see a free range chicken,

she will not escape my camera.

 

Hahaha

[frizzers]

Ace, are any of these guys your neighbours?

[drbubb]

The Waltons experienced the 1930's Depression, if I recall my fictional characters correctly.

 

 

US oil prices fell from a 1920 peak of $3.07 per barrel to a double bottom in 1931 and 1933

of 65-67 cents // source: Petroleum Economist article, April 1991.

 

The US was a creditor nation then. And the depression was a "deflationary depression",

where oil prices collapsed rather than skyrocketing. It was cheap to run that old truck.

But no one had much money.

 

Now people have money, but energy prices are shooting up

 

Oil Price charts

1.a/

.

.b

See, my old 1991 article:"Cycling Towards Low Oil Prices" : pg.1 : pg.2 : pg.3

The article suggested cycles of: 2.4 years, 8.3 years, and 30 years

This projects an Oil Peak in 1980 +30 years = 2010, could that be $200+?

 

2/

3/

4/

WTI Crude, per Stockcharts ... update

 

Gold vs.Oil/

 

 

= = =

 

(it may have looked crazy at the time):

 

Jul 14 2006 / Dr Bubb:

 

" As I have said before...

The World will be a better place If and When the USA discovers a new mission...

As a Country to be the Leader of Innovation in Alternative Energy.

 

To get there, we may need to see:

+ $200 Oil,

+ More failures in US political leadership,

+ A clear peak in Oil resources vs. Production,

+ A more widespread realisation that the current mission as

"the world's policeman and consumer of last resort" is thankless, and will eventually bankrupt the USA "

 

/see: http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=611

[drbubb]

THANKS everyone, for the suggestions-

I have made a number of edits in the piece, and think it is better now

 

= = = = =

 

BUBB'S ARMY OF VIGOROUS TRUTH TELLERS (AViTT's) - Nominations please !

 

"What we need now is an army of vigorous truth tellers (Al Gore, Matt Simmons, Ron Paul, and JH Kunstler come to mind) and an uncorrupted mainstream media willing to report their views. A co-ordinated national effort will be needed to repair the damage, and build an American dream which is sustainable, and that can be passed on to our Grandchildren."

 

I started with these:

Al Gore, Matt Simmons, Ron Paul, and JH Kunstler

 

...will probably add:

Jim Puplava- for obvious reasons

 

ANY OTHER AVTT nominations?

[frizzers]

Marc Faber?

Peter Schiff?

John Williams of Shadowstats?

James Turk even?

[drbubb]

Yes. Those are very good AViTTs.

 

Stephen Roach (Morgan Stanley Asia chairman) amongst the Wall Street elite.

Plus anyone regularly on bloomberg who actively "disses" Alan Greenspan.

 

Hence: Jim Rogers... etc

[Plastic Elastic]

Yes. Those are very good AViTTs.

 

Stephen Roach (Morgan Stanley Asia chairman) amongst the Wall Street elite.

Plus anyone regularly on bloomberg who actively "disses" Alan Greenspan.

 

Hence: Jim Rogers... etc

 

Going off on a tangent from your (excellent) article:

 

Do you see a big risk for the US to gradually lose the knowledge base that is required to rebuild its economy, i.e. science, technology and engineering?

 

The reason I'm asking this question is that in the UK there is an obvious drain of the scientific and technological knowledge base that would be required for a massive overhaul of a society that is only maintaining very few scientific/technological/engineering sectors, such as pharmacy and perhaps biotech. This can be recognised from the amount of science departments (chemistry, physics, material science) and companies that are closing, the salaries that are being paid, and the difficulties the few remaining companies have to find suitable graduates to fill positions?

 

I believe the US and the UK have very similar problems hence the question.

[drbubb]

Do you see a big risk for the US to gradually lose the knowledge base that is required to rebuild its economy, i.e. science, technology and engineering?

 

Yes, I agree. There will be fewer top brains in the US due to the "reverse brain drain."

 

Top academics, and top students are now willing to "stay at home" (in India, in China, etc)

because there are better job oportunities there now, and the cost of living is lower, and more familiar.

Worse yet, experienced people who are living in the US and UK, are headed "back home" too.

China's recent moon probe could not have happened without some help from returneees IMHO.

 

However, the US can hire firms and experts from other countries to assist in its rebuilding.

And once the "great awakening" occurs, the US may work to change itself. It could be made

more liveable by chaging its complex tax regime, and eliminating bad legislation like the Patriot

Act.

[Plastic Elastic]

[...]

Top academics, and top students are now willing to "stay at home" (in India, in China, etc)

because there are better job oportunities there now, and the cost of living is lower, and more familiar.

Worse yet, experienced people who are living in the US and UK, are headed "back home" too.

China's recent moon probe could not have happened without some help from returneees IMHO.

[...]

 

As far as China is concerned, the trend changed back in 2004 or 2005. I remember a Huntsman presentation on China back in 2006 and it seems they actively recruited 50,000 scientists back into China in 2004. If I remember correctly, the year after there was a net influx of scientists into China for the first time in many years.

[drbubb]

(I sent this email to James Howard Kunstler: ):

 

Hi James,

 

Your writings and videos have helped to inspire me to write an article, which was published on Financial Sense.com this week. It is certainly "up your street", and was summarised this way by Aaron Krowne:

 

An awesome comprehensive piece on the "American predicament."

 

Americans are not prepared for the coming crunch, and the leading politicians are focussed on other issues. Most politicians are content to leave the main fictions unchallenged. They know that negative campaiging rarely succeeds. Few have the courage to make the call to sacrifice and change of lifestyle that is needed. So we may find ourselves sleep-walking when the crisis hits. Ultimately, a big shock may be the only thing that will get the average voter worried enough to demand that their leaders start to address the root problem : America's traditional yearning for the a suburban way of life, which has left the country with a mammoth and unsustainable appetite for oil.

 

/see: http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2008/0107c.html

 

= =

 

At the end I say:

"What we need now is an army of vigorous truth tellers (Al Gore, Matt Simmons, Ron Paul, JH Kunstler, and Jim Puplava come to mind) and an uncorrupted mainstream media willing to report their views. A co-ordinated national effort will be needed to repair the damage, and build an American dream which is sustainable, and that can be passed on to our Grandchildren. "

 

 

Best regards, and thanks for the continuing inspiration

 

Yours truly, Michael Hampton (of Hong Kong and London)

[drbubb]

(Then, as Ace pointed out... there is the Spiritual Side, too):

 

Suburban Dreams: Levittown, New York

 

Levittown, New York, is an enormous middle-income housing development built during the late 1940s and early 1950s; it epitomizes the architecturally homogeneous towns and subdivisions that popped up across the United States during the Truman and Eisenhower years. When William Levitt began erecting low-cost Cape Cod houses on potato fields east of New York City in 1946, his planned community had a population of 450; by the late 1950s, its population was 60,000. Builders liked "housing developments" such as Levittown: their lack of distinctive style made them quick and cheap to construct. Families liked them too, and not just because of their affordability: living in a house allowed for more privacy than living in an apartment building, and certainly allowed more access to the outdoors. At the same time, living in a moderately populated, planned community like Levittown, with its yards opening one onto the other, fostered feelings of instant neighborhood and shared upward mobility.

 

Not surprisingly, these housing developments tended to contain only white middle-class families. Black families were not welcome, and the sameness of the homes enforced, at least outwardly, the sameness of the lives lived inside them...

. . .

 

Intrigued and alarmed by the paradoxical nature of these communities, a handful of American writers in the 1950s and 1960s explored the ramifications of life within suburbia. Most were critical. While authors such as John Cheever and John Updike focused on upper-middle-class suburbs and the stifled emotional and intellectual milieu of the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) within them, Jewish American writers looked at the suburbs from a different perspective: both in appreciation of the respite they afforded Jewish Americans striving to leave the chaotic, dirty cities and with concern about the consumerism and conformity that such communities seemed to promote. Most vexing for Jewish American writers was the move away from the expression of any distinctive religious and cultural identity that necessarily accompanied relocation into towns such as Levittown, Scarsdale, or Short Hills. Philip Roth in particular explored the uneasiness of such an assimilated Jewish American suburban family. In Goodbye, Columbus (1959), protagonist Neil Klugman, a Newark, New Jersey, resident, partakes enthusiastically of the tennis courts, houses, and country club girls of suburban New Jersey, only to find that that world contains as much hypocrisy and pain as the cramped apartments of the inner city. Published a decade later, Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1969) harnesses the somewhat fond and lyrical observations of his earlier work to wickedly dissect the suburban American Dream. Portnoy's Complaint satirizes the consumption and assimilation that had become the hallmark of the good Jew, especially the good Jew outside of the city. Touching directly on "cookie-cutter" communities such as Levittown, Alex Portnoy's mother extols her nephew, the "biggest brain surgeon in the entire Western Hemisphere," whose genius is confirmed by his possession of "six different split-level ranch type houses." Granted, her annoying praise makes us laugh, but its comical partnering of enormous professional success with duplicate dull-as-dishwater house ownership points to some of the complexities of America's suburban dream, complexities felt early in the remarkable attractions of Levittown. Issues such as the struggle over neighborhoods can be seen in other literary works, among them Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and Jo Sinclair's The Changelings (1955).

 

Questions

Comprehension: Why were these planned communities built close to highways?

 

Comprehension: What significance do you see in the fact that fences between yards were not allowed during Levittown's early years?

 

Context: How might the heritage shared by those who grew up in suburban housing developments differ from that shared by people who grew up in other areas of the United States? Consider, for example, the way Ralph Ellison depicts the city in Invisible Man.

 

/see: http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit14/context_activ-2.html

[drbubb]

(as posted on HPC):

 

Of course the irony of this is that in UK we have only recently moved away from the high density / local services model. The poor suckers who live in the satellite new build estates will be rueing the day they decided they could live a 3 mile drive away from their local school, supermarket and train station.

 

ABSOLUTELY!

If you are going to buy property in the US or the UK, you had better pay close attention to the

nearness to public transport.

[drbubb]

(Canaccord has found some good investment themes in the related problems):

 

Best Ideas Weekly / Canadian Research Top Picks: Our outlook for 2008

 

Canaccord Research:

We are delighted to present our Canadian Research Top Picks for 2008.

 

While we believe a US recession has started we see continued trends that support our core themes and our Best Ideas for 2008. Namely, we see continued global growth driven by the continued expansion in China. We refute the claim that slowing exports will materially slow the Chinese economy; rather, we see domestic Chinese and emerging growth consumption as being the primary driver of growth over the coming year. We believe US economic growth will resume in 2009 at the latest and that patient investors should begin to be rewarded later in 2008 as the market discounts a recovery. We therefore reiterate our key themes of:

 

1. Infrastructure -- we believe that globally infrastructure spending will amount to tens of trillions of dollars over the next 5 to 10 years driven by crumbling infrastructure in OECD countries and new infrastructure in emerging economies. We therefore see meaningful demand for basic materials, energy, wireless telecommunications, engineering services, construction and agriculture.

 

2. Sustainability -- the worldwide demand for resources and the strain on governments to heed environmental issues will continue to drive the move towards renewability and technical advancements in everything from energy creation and consumption to recyclability of metals and basic materials.

 

3. Eclipse of the US economy globally -- the shift in economic leadership globally could be argued indefinitely but what is clear is that Global Central Banks, corporations and individuals are moving wealth more often in non-dollar denominated assets. This leads many to conclude that Gold and other global currencies are inextricably on the rise over the long term, some term this a transfer of wealth from west to east, while others see this as the rise of the middle class globally.

 

4. Demographics -- the aging of OECD countries and the youth of emerging economies has a profound impact on healthcare, housing, trade, travel and tourism, savings, interest rates and the need for yield. We see long term global interest rates as continually under pressure due to the quest for yield and the savings rates of many eastern economies. Central Bank intervention and coordinated interest rate reductions at the Federal Reserve, ECB, BOE, BOJ and BOC should also reduce short term rates globally. We encourage investors to review the detailed analysis and reports which support these views.

[drbubb]

Restructuring America's Suburban Dream :

 

The comfortable fantasies that have sustained the American Dream for several decades, are fading fast. 2007 was the year when we took a peek behind the curtain, and saw what financial machinations are sustaining the world's largest economy. American consumer spending represents 25-30% of global GNP, but the money that Americans are spending is not all their own, nor is much of the energy we are using. Keeping the oil and the money flowing relies on spin, financial manipulation, and statistical adjustments which are now being exposed as fiction. If the dollar loses its purchasing power, how will US energy consumers go on importing the oil they need to maintain an extravagant lifestyle?

 

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

 

The ongoing bust in Wall Street-backed finance will undoubtedly be a major Issue for 2008. No amount of Fed rate cutting can reverse this spectacular debt collapse. The fallacies of so many aspects of ''contemporary finance'' have been exposed. Going forward, the viability of many firms involved in Wall Street risk intermediation will be in doubt. The financial guarantors are in serious trouble. The credit default marketplace will attempt to forestall implosion. Problems that will beset the colossal leveraged speculating community have only begun to emerge.

 

What impact Fed "reflationary" policies have on the ballooning bubbles in the "money-like" credit sectors is a less obvious but major issue in 2008

 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JA08Dj03.html

[drbubb]

(from Messages from Larry):

 

FSU Editorial: "Restructuring America's Suburban Dream" - 01/07/2008

 

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2008/0107c.html

Some good pictures of houses and cars and which will be for some boomers

nostalgia shots.

 

What is not emphasized in this article is too even achieve the fragile

transition the author is proposing the dollar would have to maintain (some)

credibility in the world financial markets.

 

I don't believe this is likely as the value of the dollar is no longer

determined by the U.S. treasury but by the foreign holders of dollars.

When they are lending it back to us they have the leverage to the decide

terms and even value.How do they do this? By setting the interest rate is

the most direct.

 

And what will transpire is one of those countries will get ahead of the

others and that will start the dollar fall.

 

Then dear friends our even dearer foreign friends will just start to eat us

alive. What's that ole phrase: I smell the blood of and American?

And even foreigners can learn to like junk food.

 

The dollar is fake... they know it... we know it... and everyone is waiting

for someone to trip while pushing a wheel barrow of our phony green and the

whole make believe parade will end when no one bothers to pick them up.

 

People i think could accept the world hated the U.S. and has for some time.

But they also had fear of the U.S. because of it's aggressiveness and it's

finacial power. The loss of financial power has swiftly changed that fear to

contempt. Our flag around the world has lost it's status as a standard of

hope for many people and is seen as a target of hatred and contempt.

 

/see: http://messagesfromlarry.blogspot.com/2008...g-americas.html

[HollandPark]

BOOKS - on the same topic:

 

 

Covering Urban Sprawl: Rethinking the American Dream: An RTNDF Journalists' Resource Guide by David Goldberg

 

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (Vintage, 1993).

 

Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why It Matters by Stacy Mitchell (Institute for Self Reliance, 2000).

 

In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Wal-Mart Is Devouring America by Bob Ortega (Times Books, 2000).

 

No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies by Naomi Klein (Picador, 2000).

 

The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966-1999 by Ray Suarez (Free Press, 1999).

 

Once There Were Greenfields: How Urban Sprawl Is Undermining America's Environment, Economy and Social Fabric by F. Kaid Benfield, Matthew D. Raimi, and Donald D.T. Chen (New York: Natural Resources Defense Council, 1999).

 

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by Andres Duany, et al (North Point Press, 2001).

 

-source: http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/resources.html

[HollandPark]

JH KUNSTLER "GETS IT". of course:

================

 

The "housing bubble" implosion is broadly misunderstood. It's not just the collapse of a market for a particular kind of commodity, it's the end of the suburban pattern itself, the way of life it represents, and the entire economy connected with it. It's the crack up of the system that America has invested most of its wealth in since 1950. It's perhaps most tragic that the mis-investments only accelerated as the system reached its end, but it seems to be nature's way that waves crest just before they break.

 

This wave is breaking into a sea-wall of disbelief. Nobody gets it. The psychological investment in what we think of as American reality is too great. The mainstream media doesn't get it, and they can't report it coherently. None of the candidates for president has begun to articulate an understanding of what we face: the suburban living arrangement is an experiment that has entered failure mode.

 

I maintain that all the "players" -- from the bankers to the politicians to the editors to the ordinary citizens -- will continue to not get it as the disarray accelerates and families and communities are blown apart by economic loss. Instead of beginning the tough process of making new arrangements for everyday life, we'll take up a campaign to sustain the unsustainable old way of life at all costs.

 

-continues: http://www.biiwii.com/guest4/kunstler/21.htm

[HollandPark]

MORE FROM KUNSTLER...

 

Ground Zero:

A reader sent me a passle of recent clippings last week from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It contained one story after another about the perceived need to build more highways in order to maintain "economic growth" (and incidentally about the "foolishness" of public transit). I understood that to mean the need to keep the suburban development system going, since that has been the real main source of the Sunbelt's prosperity the past 60-odd years. They cannot imagine an economy that is based on anything besides new subdivisions, freeway extensions, new car sales, and Nascar spectacles. The Sunbelt, therefore, will be ground-zero for all the disappointment emanating from this cultural disaster, and probably also ground-zero for the political mischief that will ensue from lost fortunes and crushed hopes.

 

From time-to-time, I feel it's necessary to remind readers what we can actually do in the face of this long emergency. Voters and candidates in the primary season have been hollering about "change" but I'm afraid the dirty secret of this campaign is that the American public doesn't want to change its behavior at all. What it really wants is someone to promise them they can keep on doing what they're used to doing: buying more stuff they can't afford, eating more shitty food that will kill them, and driving more miles than circumstances will allow.

 

Preparing for the Inevitable

Here's what we better start doing.

 

1/ Stop all highway-building altogether. Instead, direct public money into repairing railroad rights-of-way. Put together public-private partnerships for running passenger rail between American cities and towns in between. If Amtrak is unacceptable, get rid of it and set up a new management system. At the same time, begin planning comprehensive regional light-rail and streetcar operations.

 

2/ End subsidies to agribusiness and instead direct dollar support to small-scale farmers, using the existing regional networks of organic farming associations to target the aid. (This includes ending subsidies for the ethanol program.)

 

3/ Begin planning and construction of waterfront and harbor facilities for commerce: piers, warehouses, ship-and-boatyards, and accommodations for sailors. This is especially important along the Ohio-Mississippi system and the Great Lakes.

 

4/ In cities and towns, change regulations that mandate the accommodation of cars. Direct all new development to the finest grain, scaled to walkability. This essentially means making the individual building lot the basic increment of redevelopment, not multi-acre "projects." Get rid of any parking requirements for property development. Institute "locational taxation" based on proximity to the center of town and not on the size, character, or putative value of the building itself. Put in effect a ban on buildings in excess of seven stories. Begin planning for district or neighborhood heating installations and solar, wind, and hydro-electric generation wherever possible on a small-scale network basis.

 

5/ We'd better begin a public debate about nuclear power - whether it is feasible or desirable to construct any new nuclear power plants. If there are good reasons to go forward with nuclear, and a consensus about the risks and benefits, we need to establish it quickly. There may be no other way to keep the lights on in America after 2020.

 

We need to prepare for the end of the global economic relations that have characterized the final blow-off of the cheap energy era. The world is about to become wider again as nations get desperate over energy resources. This desperation is certain to generate conflict. We'll have to make things in this country again, or we won't have the most rudimentary household products.

 

We'd better prepare psychologically to downscale all institutions, including government, schools and colleges, corporations, and hospitals. All the centralizing tendencies and gigantification of the past half-century will have to be reversed. Government will be starved for revenue and impotent at the higher scale. The centralized high schools all over the nation will prove to be our most frustrating mis-investment. We will probably have to replace them with some form of home-schooling that is allowed to aggregate into neighborhood units. A lot of colleges, public and private, will fail as higher ed ceases to be a "consumer" activity. Corporations scaled to operate globally are not going to make it. This includes probably all national chain "big box" operations. It will have to be replaced by small local and regional business. We'll have to reopen many of the small town hospitals that were shuttered in recent years, and open many new local clinic-style health-care operations as part of the greater reform of American medicine.

 

(Does this begin to sound like Ron Paul??)

 

Take a time-out from legal immigration and get serious about enforcing the laws about illegal immigration. Stop lying to ourselves and stop using semantic ruses like calling illegal immigrants "undocumented."

 

Prepare psychologically for the destruction of a lot of fictitious "wealth" -- and allow instruments and institutions based on fictitious wealth to fail, instead of attempting to keep them propped up on credit life-support. Like any other thing in our national life, finance has to return to a scale that is consistent with our circumstances -- i.e., what reality will allow. That process is underway, anyway, whether the public is prepared for it or not. We will soon hear the sound of banks crashing all over the place. Get out of their way, if you can.