Two weeks after the bailout heard round the world, and with three weeks to go until one of the most anticipated presidential elections in American history, journalist-turned-novelist James Howard Kunstler’s got a lot to say. He loves sermonizing about the cause-effect relationship between suburban sprawl and everything from obesity to American dependence on oil. And he’s saying it all via the Web, through a weekly podcast that offers some of the smartest, most honest urban commentary around—online or off.
Kunstler knows a little about the topic. Since the mid-90s, he has written four non-fiction books about suburban development and oil. His first work on the subject, The Geography of Nowhere, discussed the effects of cartoon architecture, junked cities, and a ravaged countryside, as he put it. The tomes that followed—Home From Nowhere, The City in Mind, and The Long Emergency—pushed hard on taboo topics like a post-oil America. His books spurred the original podcast idea and offer constant fodder for his shows.
Kunstler’s show, dubbed KunstlerCast, highlights the tragic comedy of suburban sprawl. He always manages to relate the topic to current issues. In recent episodes, he’s attributed our current financial mess to the American living arrangement and the subprime mortgage failure, forecasted the grave impact the oil situation will have on Americans living in suburbia, and spouted on subjects like the vice presidential candidates, the future of airline travel, even tattoos.
“The subject [of suburban sprawl] itself is kind of endlessly fascinating, since we’ve gone to such extremes to torture ourselves with this idiotic arrangement of how we live,” Kunstler says. “For example, the enormous subject of our happy motoring program is so rich that you could spend hour after hour discussing its bizarre angles, everything from the agony of commuting in southern California to the insane costs of running cars for every member of the family.”
Kunstler is frank, uncensored, and entertaining, deeming no topic off limits. Just listen to his take on McCain’s vice presidential pick, Governor Sarah Palin. “It was a gross and outrageous act of pandering that is now, pardon the metaphor, standing naked before the public for what it is,” Kunstler says. “Now, whether Sarah Palin will appear naked before the public is another question…[McCain] basically picked this Barbie doll with glasses on who looks like one of the secretaries in a porn movie setup.”
Though Kunstler is trying to rebrand Republicans “The Party That Wrecked America,” he doesn’t reserve his anger for the GOP. In a two-part episode entitled “One City Block,” Kunstler and co-host Duncan Crary (who also produces the shows) walked the streets of Kunstler’s hometown, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and described what they saw. The podcaster bemoaned the landscaping and parking situations, and praised the cohesion of small towns.
“We went on a shopping spree and got 11 different kinds of street trees that behave differently…Some of them are totally inappropriate,” Kunstler says about the landscaping on Broadway, the city’s main street. “They planted one red maple. It just sort of sticks out like a sore thumb, like a sore, red thumb. Why did they have to get a red maple?”
He moves on to parking. “I think diagonal parking would probably be a better thing all and all. But since we’re sort of at the end of the automobile age, I sort of don’t give a shit anymore.”
He eventually returns to suburban sprawl. “The rest of America doesn’t function this way. Everybody’s in their car, going through the drive-in at the cappuccino place, drinking the cappuccino in their car,” he says. “They don’t get to see other people. When we came into the coffee shop here, I saw three or four people who are good friends of mine, not just casual folks you say hello to.”
Kunstler’s honesty and frankness don’t offend most listeners. Rather, these attributes engage even those who fall on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Take Mike Schaeffer, a conservative, forty-something health plan administrator and father of five from Troy, N.Y. He listens to the KunstlerCast weekly. “Some of what [Kunstler] has to say is rather controversial, but in many ways, it’s right on the money,” he says. “He challenges his listeners to really think critically about what it is that we’re seeing.”
Just two weeks ago, for example, as the House of Representatives got ready to vote on the $700 billion bailout package, Kunstler spent all but five minutes of a podcast condemning the financial sector’s stranglehold on the American and world economies. In the remaining five minutes, Crary and Kunstler tied the bailout discussion back to urbanism, with a segment on the inherently American idea that you’re not successful unless you own a house. Kunstler called the notion sentimental nonsense that would lead to a further downward spiral in the housing market.
This no-holds-barred attitude about suburbia brings nearly 9,000 people to the podcasts each week, according to Crary. It’s why, in July, KunstlerCasts were downloaded 32,000 times (the highest download month to date). It’s also one of the main reasons John Merrall, a disc jockey for a Canadian radio station, airs Kunstler’s show every Saturday morning.
“I appreciate when he addresses mundane topics like urban planning,” says Merrall, who resides in Hamilton, Ontario, a place he calls uninhabitable due to the disappearance of high-paying union jobs and movement away from the city center. “I’d like to hope that airing Kunstler’s podcast on CFMU might help get just a few more people interested in the idea of…making my city more livable.” Plus, he added, “Kunstler’s fun to listen to.”
Kunstler aims to please. “I consider myself a prose artist, someone who is happy to function in fiction and nonfiction…and to some extent, an entertainer,” he says. “One of the hallmarks of my work is that it’s comic. It’s explicitly comic.”
A common Kunstler refrain—the Samuel Beckett quote “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness”—pretty well sums up this man.“He is really funny. The subjects he talks about are really dark,” Crary says. “I don’t think people would listen to him if he weren’t funny.” But he is, and the medium seems to work.
Schaeffer likes the accessibility of podcasts. “You used to listen to AM radio a lot,” he says. “Podcasting is the next generation in communication on a very wide scale.” Merrall likes that Kunstler covers a topic that, in his opinion, isn’t covered enough: “He’s addressing issues that certainly aren’t getting much traction in the mass media. And even if they were, I don’t think you could trust the mass media to give those issues a fair treatment.”
Whether Kunstler’s podcasts will continue gaining traction and popularity remains to be seen. Perhaps more people will tune in now that Kunstler has appeared on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. Without question, Kunstler will never stop talking about suburban sprawl. “There’s a lot to say about it, especially since we’re so determined to keep on doing it in the face of circumstances that are telling us we better change our behavior,” he says. “It’s a fascinating tragic spectacle.”
To check out audio files, transcripts and the listener discussion forum, go to the KunstlerCast Web site. The toll-free listener comment line is (866) 924-9499.
I've been a Kunstler fan since "The End of Suburbia" came out. He's one of the few people who see how bad things really are, and he saw it before it began falling apart.
Humor lies in the surprise punchline or surprise circumstance. The surprise that's coming for America is going to be like the traditional Marx brothers' ladder fiasco.
I too am a long time fan of Mr. Kunstler. Years ago he called it exactly right, the current suburban collapse, in particular the exurbs of cities such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Bernardino where there are square miles of more unoccupied than occupied houses. America's industrial home building machine (over 30% of our suburban housing development today is done by just 10 building companies) went into overdrive on the steroids of the plentiful investment money sloshing around the world looking for high returns in what used to be a fairly stable investment, America's housing stock.
In pursuit of ever higher profits, Fannie and Freddie executives took on incredible risk; they mortgaged their companies to the hilt in pursuit of very highly leveraged profit. They were happy to sop up those billions of investment dollars (mostly from foreign nations selling us oil and goods made in the orient) and put them to work. It was a wonderful money producing machine during the go go years of the early oughts. Put a couple dollars in one end of the financial machine, and hundreds came out the other end.
Leverage is a very powerful tool during a growing market, but also very powerful on the way down. But hey, no worry, Uncle Sam would bail out Fannie or Freddie when these companies exhausted their meager capital, which doesn’t take long with 30 to 1 leverage. Private investors and company executives have pocketed all the upside profits, taxpayers fork over to cover the down side losses. Sad days for America.
Plant a garden, or become friends with someone that does. Get the bike out the garage, and fix the flat. Rediscover friends and relatives. The other side of the next thirty years could either be more humane, or more ugly and brutish; but it will certainly be different than what we have been used to the last fifty years. Good luck to us all. There are no rose colored glasses in Mr. Kunstler’s world. And we will be better prepared for the future because of that.
Thanks to folks like Mr. Kunstler, the description of what we are witnessing and what the future may hold are so much more clear. He's able to put into words, all these things I've been feeling for so long. I grew up in suburban N. California, and have always felt how nowhere it all was, even though, compared to what we live like today, was relatively sane and Family-centered and safe, and we could ride bikes everywhere and be home for dinner without Ridalin coursing through our viens.
We all must do what we can with what we have to be better nieghbors, learn how to grow real food, eat real meals with real people, turn off the fricken tv's,etc...Some of the solutions we need are really not that complex, you just have to commit to them, and then you'll notice others around you will want to do the same because you will be more free and happier. Fuck the corporate banking money and their reality.
When I first came to the US from a charming German town, wehere everything could be done on foot, I drove down with my new husband Aurora Avenue in Seatle and broke down in tears wanting to go home right away. We moved to Wallingford in Seattle, somewhat more charming neighborhood, but even there, when I entered the main grocery store, the Food giant, I feel into a depression right then and now, looking at all the packaged foods and stuff no-one needs... Now I live already many years in the US but I tell you what, it's infinitely harder to connect as a community on a sustained basis with individuals. People just don't want to talk about things that really matter and if you share your thoughts about politics or global issues frankly, people think you are sick or needy. In Europe its normal to talk freely. .For Americans to survive beyond individualism, people have to learn again to actually really enjoy each others company, and that over a prolonged sustained period of time which includes to really enjoy life without consumerism or spending money. People really do not seem to know each other very well here and even at school kids change friends often even yearly.... no wonder, people are on prozac... people get recycled all the time and we don't know how to maintain even the most rudimentary friendships. We have not gone through hard times shoulder on shoulder (perhaps in New Orleans some people did - after Kathrina), and if we go through hard times we tend to run away from each other... thinking we can do it all alone.
It's gonna be hard to work unitedly and in a collective fashion to get out of this.... working shoulder on shoulder to overcome a crisis, is not an easy task for rugged individualistic minded Americans who think that they are personally to blame if they, after a life of hard work, still are not rich. Human values are still pretty screwed up here. I know I am over generalizing too and there are always exceptions, but just to get the point across... they don't even provide universal health care... and that to me says it all. See, how can we even pick ourselves up on our "own bootstraps" if we get sick. Sick people will be the loosers when the suburban sprawl gets to its worst case scenario as the clown show continues its "business as usual" - we all keep pretending that NOTHING is ever wrong... in the best Country of the world.
Well, the good thing is... the US still has much land to cultivate organically and of people learn farming fast enough and get land in the country side, they would be easier making it than overpopulated European countries... This country still has more space than many other countries. Although most of the land is by now privately owned. Guess, humanity will be taking all the food farming land over to produce food again. Perhaps good farming land can't be privately owned any longer and should be used as cooperatives to feed the population.
What we need is an entire new socio-economic system, which trhough simple means provides, food, clothe, shelter, medical care, education, and work to all... it can be done... but not through cut throat capitalism. We just need to rethink a new system which goes beyond capitalism and communism.
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James H Kuntsler is a breath of fresh air in the ever more choked suburban world that we sadly call home in Canada and the USA. I won't comment much on the state of affairs in suburbia as James did a great job already. However, the one thing that still fascinates me is how oblivious most people are to the suburban problem with the car as the main culprit. Many will agree with me when I mention that we have a serious problem on our hands but virtually nobody can see a world without cars within their lifetime. We truly are addicted to our cars. And no, the electric car or any type of magic energy car is not the solution. We have to (and will soon be forced to) stop spending the ridiculous amounts of money on road construction and maintenance. This will help us fall out of love with cars and back in love with people!
I agree with the previous post from small town Germany,
I'm having the same feeling of Hyper Individualism in this country, being born and raised in NYC where you could never get along without lots of community supporting you.
Your Deli guy, your local dry cleaner, your morning coffee guy, numerous conversations with fellow commuters in the Subways..etc....
All these encounters serve a very important purpose for our mental health.
I now live in the Seattle area, and this place is supposed to be less car dependent than most places.
Not even close.
Stop criticizing James Howard Kunstler- the man is right on the spot on everything about the problem of urbanism in the modern Western (more preferably the English speaking world) world. JHK is the best speaker on urbanism since Jane Jacobs and I can't believe some of the shite thats been written about him above.
However one I need to say is this- that America may be a little ahead in the disintegration of healthy city centres, but countries like Britain, Australia and New Zealand are not far behind. I have relatives in Auckland which I visited last year- and GET THIS, this is a city of little over a million which is the SAME SIZE as London, which has 12 MILLION!!! Everybody lives in a one storey sprawling mess- pretty similiar to Australia's sprawling (at least America has interesting cities, Australia is f*cking camp and boring lol) conglomarates.
Even Britain is faring bad- London is spreading out (like it did in the 20s and 30s) again, but then again at least it has a beautiful, vibrant and historical centre. Living in Ireland, and like most here I visit England a lot- to relatives over there (we Irish are everywhere lol). They live near Birmingham, and I swear to god DON'T EVER visit Birmingham because it is the biggest cip shitehole under the sun- all there is f*cking tower blocks jutting up everywhere, it has NO centre with streets, and has a f*cking SHOPPING CENTRE as its focus point. Apart from Edinburgh most British cities are the same- burnt out and exhausted, as much to do with Thatcherism as the Blitz. Britain's town centres are also been hollowed out by Tescos (UK/Ireland/N.Ireland) equavalent of Walmart. For further reading look up TESCOPOLY and BRITAIN'S LOST CITIES (by Gavin Stamp).
Part of the problem with American tourists is that they often take the tourist boards of other countries rosy, chocolate box vision of the country the are holidaying in too seriously. Apart from Central London, Edinburgh and large towns like Bath or Stratford (where my Grandaunt lives), most of British cities and metropolitan areas are nothing short of been sh*tholes with nothing to do, and tacky cheap housing. I'm sure its the same in some other European countries that Americans visit- Americans only ever really see the centre of European/British/Irish cities and assume that those countries have a better approach to urbanism than Americans, not so- go out the hinterlands of cities like Paris and you will see nothing but large ugly soul destroying tower blocks by the hundreds, and the Super U / Hyper marche (France has the biggest shopping centres after Britain). Ireland is ok I suppose (our cities are too small). Dublin and Galway are still basically medieval/18th century towns with a modern appearance, having never had industrialisation has paid its dues, our cities are compact, livable and even pretty- the Irish Government is even goinig to pedestrianise O' Connell Street, Westmorland street and Dame street, just like Temple Bar and Grafton street are pedestrianised. And integrated tickiting service is going to be brought in so one card can be used on the hundreds of Dublin buses, Luas tram and future metro. Maybe these other English speaking nations need do is look to Dublin for solutions (well don't know about New York thats better than Dublin by a mile). The problem in English speaking countries like America/UK and Australia is that they don't want the Europeans showing them how to do things (kind of like a man in a car and directions lol)- but Dublin is a rairity I believe- a workable, compact and friendly city in the English speaking world. And i'm not just been pompous becuase I live here! lol. Btw was in Philadelphia a while back- and it brought home why Jane Jacobs and James Howard Kunstler have hit the nail on the head- the place is a feckin disgrace- i've never been in such a dead, lifeless place, and seen some of those wonderful old town houses go to rot was a crying shame. Hopefully JHK's Kunstlercast blog and the New Urbanist movement will get things right again- also American cities start building some feckin apartments/townhouses in the centre of cities- why is such valuable space been wasted, when their they could be attracting rents/ mortgages/ and businesses big and small- in Dublin they wouldn't leave your backyard empty- given that somebody can make money off of it- be it from monthly rent or a commerical lease, I don't understand America, such a prudent and rich country, yet wastes so much valuable real estate- right smack bang in the centre of things. However Dublin/ Galway etc have much to learn to. Now my fingers are tired so i'm going for a cuppa tea lol- god bless Kunstler, urbanist prophet and pioneer for better cities, and the 21st century's Jane Jacobs