"That still leaves a gap, and outlying areas will again be the least practical, but by no means is it a total collapse."

So how do the "supplies" get into the "city" to be distributed to
these still inhabited suburbs?

Start thinking Nigeria pipeline explodes as people line up
to get gasoline from them.

and helos sold by Taliban after stolen from supply "train"
into Afghanistan.

Scien: Suburbia is a generalization, as you state. The inner burbs should be as strong as inner urban areas, IMO. The car culture is too important to too many people to leave without a fight.

I assume someone raised that clearly irrelevant argument against him somewhere else, and you are attempting to pre-empt it.

Or it might be a made up absurdity to point out the irrelevance of many of the attacks on JHK.

Given a choice between abandoning everything they put into a suburban house and starting from scratch, or trying to make do however possible, I think most people will make the latter choice.

Jim calls it the "psychology of prior investment." I call it throwing your money away. But in any case, more and more people are walking away--because their mortgage is more than the value of the financial black hole that they reside in.

We just have way, way too much housing space. Zoning regulations will probably be scrapped, and a lot of houses in reasonable proximity to mass transit lines will be subdivided and/or turned into tenement housing.

y2k may happen again in 2038!

Have you ever been wrong about something? Does that determine you're wrong about everything or anything else? So now Kunstler's a shill for software engineers who conspired to reap $ by inventing a false flag catastrophe?

Jeff

Being an imaginary catastrophe, it wiped out your imagination catastrophically!

You do not realize it but your pixels were replaced and only your name remained the same. It still is 'Cashew' as in the 'nut' isn't it? :)

The Y2K problem was serious. The government and private industry threw millions of dollars and hours of senior programmer's time into solving it. We'll never know what might have happened if the problem wasn't addressed before it blew up in our faces.

Maybe if we put as much effort into solving the peak oil problem before it hits, we'll never know either.

Negative evidence isn't worth much.

I'm still waiting for the Y2K bug to wipe us out, like he predicted :)

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Very brave opening up this old chestnut but here goes my 2c worth....

I recently thumbed through a Y2K doomer book in my local library (last borrowing Date Nov 1999) and it was laughable, in hindsight, just some of the things they were predicting. Interstingly though the areas of risk had been broken up into the 1-3 day disruptions, 1-3 weeks, months years and decades and the long er the disruption, the less it was seen to be of a mjaor problem as people could adapt to a situation very quickly once they had a time frame.

Y2K if it happend was going to be an acute event where the damage could be assessed very quickly and the market would allocate resources to repairing it just as quickly. A cynic would suggest that it was a beat up by the IT industry to blackmail the market into handing over vast sums to fix the "problem" (did someonae say 2038?). If Kunstler swallowed all the doomsayers prophecy from the nindustry then he wasn't the only one.

Peak Oil and climate change are chronic problems where the symptoms are mild and diffuse but nevertheless debilitating in totality. If you really want to listen to someone who is not quite as sensationalist as Kunstler, I recommend head over to Global Public Media and Listening to Jason Bradfords excellent interview with David Holmgren of permaculture fame. Holmgren has also done some excellent work on how to go about refitting the suburbs to become worthwhile places to live again.

BTW-that 60 year long contract was enforced to the year:

"1993: Saudi Aramco gets sole control over domestic refining, marketing, distribution and joint-venture..."

It is recorded, George W. Bush "I graduated Yale in 1968 with a 2.35 GPA" http://www.monkeydyne.com/bushresume/early.html

Who are we working for?

At Baylor Med in the 50's the joke was the A students made the best professors, the B students made the best doctors, and the C students made the most money. I never believed that but at least it was intended to make everyone feel good.

Naw, its possible to go lower.

mcgowanmc -

I just so happen to have the book 'Neighbors' and thought it was great. I love Thomas Berger's black comedy and sense of the absurd. I should check out the movie version.

While very funny, the story is but a mild exaggeration of how easily things can get out of control before you even know it.

Expanding on my horror movie 'concept', perhaps a near deserted planned community in the far reaches of nowhere is invaded by a band of mutant squatters, who became that way while previously living in the abandoned nuclear power plant over in the next county. The next summer blockbuster?

Here at TOD, everyone worships to the God of using existing resources. With US population growing at 3 million per year [did you know that 2007 set the record for the most births ever in the US - ahead of the baby boom years for the first time], do you really think that we will abandon houses? The people on this site want to save poop for fertilizer, but we are going to abandon houses? WTF?

There is no evidence to support the claim of an accelerating net exports decline rate.

Yesterday you spread a rumor started by Matt Simmons on CNBC and supported by yourself and some "anonymous" oil trader that there was no evidence of Saudis producing at 9.7 mbpd in July.

Disingenuous. You know perfectly well that the standard for evidence are the EIA numbers published 3 months after the fact (and then often revised). Which means that July numbers will not be "evidence" until early October.

All reports and statements regarding the situation which are currently available and interim numbers provided by the IEA and Platts strongly suggest levels of 9.45 in June and 9.6 or 9.7 in July.

I don't know how Simmons squares his comments with reality, I didn't see the video, but if he is so serious about transparency in the market, he will explain this view soon.

If you are in fact as clued in to the numbers as you claim, you will acknowledge this and provide data and sources to back up this claim of acceleration.

Alan: I agree that cost isnt the predominant factor
in the purchase of a home.If it were....why were people buying at the top?
Today the affluent who can afford to pay cash are moving down for the reasons you mentioned...heating
cooling,maintenance,taxes,insurance,location are just
several factors.
The people most financialy able realise that even being able to purchase a home with cash doesnt make the fixed costs of owning a home go away
I have recently met many people who have the ability
to own a much bigger house and currently do.....but are moving or have moved down to a smaller home for
the obvious benefits.
Location to medical services and employment mean more to a buyer now then ever before...as does the homes
energy conservation.
I expect homes being sold may have escape clauses in
the escrow for homes failing standard R-values of
insulation.
Iam serious that this will be a future article in the
realestate section of the Wallstreet Journal soon

I live in a sturdy 1912 farmhouse- replete with orange shag carpeting. One room is filled with shag remnants-- organce, lime greens, neon blues, etc... I'm prioritizing some PV panels above remodeling.