Kunstler's Back, with "Too Much Magic"

James Howard Kunstler has a new book, which goes deeper into an idea he's often explored: that the U.S. has a misguided sense that new technologies will save the American lifestyle.

July 5, 2012, 12pm PDT | Tim Halbur

Josh O'Conner talks to Kunstler about the new book. Kunstler says that the trend towards living in cities and away from suburbs will continue, because the suburbs will collapse, but he thinks cities will be radically different in shape in the future:

"Our giant, "metroplex" cities are not scaled to the resource realities of the future either. They're too big. They will have to contract substantially around their old cores and waterfronts (if they are fortunate enough go have them). The process will be painful and disorderly and will involve a massive loss of notional wealth."

Kunstler, who has always been a proponent of New Urbanism and a frequent CNU presenter, takes a new pessimistic tone towards the practice:
"The projects the New Urbanists actually built were secondary to that rescue of culture, though some are great achievement on their own. Anyway, the New urbanism must be viewed as a transitional movement between the old template and the new requirement to return to traditional modes of inhabiting the landscape."

Full Story:

Interview with James Howard Kunstler – Author and Urbanist Critic

Published on Thursday, July 5, 2012 in Urban Times