Cyburbia - The Urban Planning Portal
      Home      Forums      Gallery      PlanningWiki      Site of the Day      Voices      Bookstore      Gear      Advertise      About Cyburbia     
The Cyburbia Forums: because listservs are boring.

You have not registered a Cyburbia Forums account
(Or you have not logged in yet.)

This annoying message will appear on every screen until you register an account or log in. Membership is completely free, and we promise not to send you any spam.

The Cyburbia Forums is the oldest and most active English language urban planning message board on the Internet, and one of the small number of online communities where members enjoy intelligent, troll-free discussion. Cyburbia has hundreds of active members, yet is a strong community full of creative, friendly, and occasionally offbeat planners, planning students, architects, urbanists and other like-minded people who care about and/or help shape the built environment. Cyburbia Forums members enjoy a sense of community and camaraderie that is unmatched by any planning-related web site or listserv. We'd love to have you join us as another Cyburbian.


Go back   Cyburbia Forums | Urban Planning Community > Cyburbia - urban planning community
Reload On James Howard Kunstler - what say ye?
Register Blogs FAQ Calendar Search Today's posts Mark forums read

Register Now for FREE!
Complete the form below to instantly register to the Cyburbia Forums. We promise not to spam you or give your registration information to others.

Username: Password: Confirm Password: E-Mail: Confirm E-Mail:
Real name (will not be visible to the public, or given to other)    Location (City/municipality, state/province/region)
 
Human verification: random question
  I agree to forum rules 

Sponsors

User login

Google search
Google

 
On James Howard Kunstler - what say ye?
By steel at 2010/01/27 - 5:00pm

William Howard Kunstler is the peek oil, doom and gloom, anti sprawl guru. He is not at all fond of the way our country is currently planned meaning he hates most of what the planning profession is doing.

I love his weekly KunstlerCast (http://kunstlercast.com/) and very much agree with most of what he says though sometimes he is a bit out there and possibly a bit self absorbed.

So what do planners think of what he is saying?

by DetroitPlanner on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 1:28pm
His arrogance is his downfall. He seems to try to educate, but it comes up sounding like he pontificates.

For as much as I laughed with him while reading 'Geography of Nowhere", I have now grown tired of him.

by Tide on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 1:37pm
I really enjoyed "Geography of Nowhere" and read it twice. I tend to agree with most of his ideas, and only after I read the book did I read about his background, which isn't in planning.

For me he uses the F-word too much in his presentations sometimes and that immediately comes across as uneducated. I know he's fired up but you lose your audience and it loses its effectiveness.

by ColoGI on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 3:46pm
Quote:
Originally posted by steel View post
William Howard Kunstler is the peek [sic] oil, doom and gloom, anti sprawl guru. He is not at all fond of the way our country is currently planned meaning he hates most of what the planning profession is doing.

...

So what do planners think of what he is saying?
I agree with most of what he says, but not in how he says it. But that is human nature and some people are wired this way. And in our information-saturated society, how do you get heard?

We choose our reactions to the human condition according to how our brains are wired. He's angry that we make the same mistakes over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over over and over and over again. What moral and ethical being wouldn't be?

by Chet on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 4:29pm
Ditto what DetroitPlanner said.

by Random Traffic Guy on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 5:09pm
After listening to some of the podcasts, I have a slightly more favorable opinion of him. I had not ready the books but had seen his articles. But the podcasts brought out some of the nuance that made him seem less fanatic. This is not to say I agree with his assertions or conclusions, just I'd be more likely to discuss it with him if we ever met in person

by Coragus on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 6:08pm
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and point at planning's failures. Kunstler is the best known critic, but not the only one. I've read both "Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency", but I haven't heard his podcast. While he makes valid points, he doesn't do a good job at all at making suggestions on what he'd like to see us do different.

To me, the danger is in the public. More than once has a citizen come to a meeting and thrown Kunstler comments in our faces.

by steel on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 7:58pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Coragus View post
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and point at planning's failures. Kunstler is the best known critic, but not the only one. I've read both "Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency", but I haven't heard his podcast. While he makes valid points, he doesn't do a good job at all at making suggestions on what he'd like to see us do different.

To me, the danger is in the public. More than once has a citizen come to a meeting and thrown Kunstler comments in our faces.


I disagree, He has many proposals for correcting our current trajectory. Unfortunately we have been brainwashed into accepting the current sprawltopia way of doing things.

by ColoGI on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 10:48pm
Quote:
Originally posted by steel View post
I disagree, He has many proposals for correcting our current trajectory. Unfortunately we have been brainwashed into accepting the current sprawltopia way of doing things.
I agree with the disagreement. ;o)

IMHO by the time the cognitive dissonance is ringing in your head from all the things you accept in our society, you can't hear the solutions. It's not that JHK doesn't offer solutions, they are non-starters in this society until resources start getting scarce, ecosystems collapse in our face, food prices shoot up, Peak Oil kills the suburb, etc.

by fringe on Wed, 2010/01/27 - 11:23pm
Because K is an outsider his thinking may be all the more relevant, like the soothsayer in Julius Ceasar, like Cassandra. like the guy off the spaceship in "The Day the Earth Stood Still", etc etc.

by boilerplater on Thu, 2010/01/28 - 12:27am
Quote:
they are non-starters in this society until resources start getting scarce, ecosystems collapse in our face, food prices shoot up, Peak Oil kills the suburb, etc
There is substantial evidence that a few of those have already happened. In '08, when we had the oil price spike, the highest nuber of foreclosures were in far-flung suburbs on the outskirts of major cities. The high gas prices broke enough budgets that people could no longer afford their mortgages. That, of course, was coupled with other factors that influenced the crises. Also recall how the price of rice spiked that year with shortages.

I like Kunstler and wish more people would listen to what he has to say. OK, maybe they would if he wasn't so gloomy. I think the F-bombs are for shock effect, as listeners aren't expecting to hear it in a more academic or institutional setting. I read The Long Emergency and often read his blog, but I think its easy to overdose on that stuff and become wrist-slashingly depressed. Then he goes on The Colbert Report and its turned into a farcical comedy. Has he ever been on Hannity or O'douche...what's his name? That would be interesting.

Contact - Cyburbia - Top
     ©1994-2010 Cyburbia       vBulletin 3.8.6 ©2000 - 2010 Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.