Comment 68052

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted August 16, 2011 at 10:28:41 in reply to Comment 68046

I've read a bunch of Kunstler's books, even met him once. Honestly, I liked his urban criticism more than the peak oil stuff, but back then he was a little calmer.

Kunstler's predictions about the urban effects of peak oil and "The Long Emergency" can't really be judged against modern precedents. What would we base it on, the fall of Rome? We've had a calamitous millenium, but it's been centuries since we've seen a prolonged fall in global trade/connectedness.

Doomsday prophecies aside, I really like this article. We need to think about notions like rhizome networks if we're ever going to understand how society and geography actually function. Hierarchical, centralized forms of urban governance aren't a very good expression of how we relate with each other in a city, and fail accordingly.

If our city is a body, then we need to stop seeing city hall as the "brain". That reduces the rest of us to unthinking brutes - muscles and organs with no thought necessary other than taking orders and reporting data. We're all brain cells - we can all think and form connections independently. The brain has no "middle" (if anything, it would be the skin) - just billions of tiny cells connecting to each other.

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