I've always wondered why so many of the right call themselves "conservatives" when they are nothing of the sort.
At the end of the so called "golden age of conservatism," (not my formulation btw) why is this country broke and hell bent on sustaining a model of suburban living that has no future??
Here’s a link to somebody named Joel Kotkin writing an “ideas” piece for Politico. I have yet to find one, but perhaps I’ve read too fast.
Basically it’s right wing boilerplate (with all the usual phrases- - elites curtailing freedoms, master planners, etc. etc.) with some shots at the New Urbanist types working in the Obama administration.
For those who are uninitiated, New Urbanism is a movement that promotes creating living environments that promote density over suburban sprawl- - otherwise described as the way humans organized themselves from the dawn of time to about 1946.
In order to remain viable, they argue, suburbs must inhale vast resources - - cheap credit and cheap oil. A price shock to either commodity would be devastating, but a shock to both- - as we’ve seen, is catastrophic. This is why more wild animals than people inhabit entire swaths of the suburban moonscape in places like California, Arizona, and Florida.
So, bye bye to the master planned Utopias of Shady Acres, Pleasant Oaks, and The Estates of Contentment. ( by the way- - of the dozens of scenarios in which I envision my own death, the most depressing might be keeling over - - face first into the goose shit that covers the asphalt “walking” path around the lake/drainage ditch in one of these subdivisions)
They simply are not sustainable.
There I said it.
Sustainable
It gives the reactionaries the vapors- - these lefty, French, eco-terrorist terms. We must be trying to indoctrinate our school kids with socialism, or save the Spotted Owl, or turn them gay.
But, here’s another word for sustainable- - “conservative.”
That’s probably confusing to many (but not all- - hello “crunchy cons!”) self- professed conservatives because it doesn’t mean what they think it means.
It means that you actually have to, you know, conserve stuff. Do more with less. Live below your means. And, this has never been the governing philosophy in the “let her rip” age of Reagan.
The New Urbanists argue that we’ve created the ultimate Bridge To Nowhere- - cramped eight lane freeways in which people drive 50 miles one way to work in a car (or truck) that averages 18 miles to the gallon.
They also make persuasive aesthetic arguments against suburbia- - namely that they are ill conceived and shoddily constructed.
And yet, the Fox News crowd thunders- - “Do you know how much we pay when we add up all our state, local, and federal taxes????!!!!”
Yes, I do. But they never ask why they pay so much- - just the convenient catch all- - “liberals love taxes…”
The American Way of Life, as presently defined IS expensive.
The constant building and re-building of roads, the fixing up of dilapidated infrastructure, (still yet to occur on a meaningful scale) and the “top notch” suburban schools all require TONS of money in taxes. In addition- - one, if not two car payments, upkeep and insurance, and the energy requirements to run both car and house are enormous.
New Urbanists ask a simple question:
“Why don’t we do things smarter in the future?”
Sounds reasonable enough.
What if we organize our living arrangements in a way that doesn’t deplete our national wealth? What if we stopped worshiping our cars? What if we think of the American Dream as something other than the profligacy and sense of entitlement so embodied by the right?
According to this guy, the right doesn’t have any use for “smart."