Browsing Tag

James Howard Kunstler

Wrap-Up: The Geography of Nowhere

Okay, I’ll be honest: my shelf filled up. You see, I have this shelf which we all mentally label as “Current Reading.” The three serious readers in our family are free to stash their current reads upon this convenient shelf rather than putting them back into their proper spots in the library and then getting them back out again each and every time they want to read. This is especially helpful for E., who isn’t tall enough to reach every Continue Reading…
May 24, 2010
Culture and Architecture

I remember the first {and only} time I saw Washington D.C. I was amazed at the original buildings there, all the Greek and Roman emphasis. I didn’t understand why the city was designed with such a feel. After all, weren’t the original Americans mostly British born? And weren’t they Christians or at least highly influenced by the Church? I was baffled by the presence of pagan idols depicted in the artwork. The Geography of Nowhere. explains where this architectural style Continue Reading…
May 4, 2009
Geography of Nowhere: Outlawing Poverty

When we were first married, we found a cozy {and cheap!} apartment in Uptown Whittier, a historic town that is technically part of the greater city of Whittier in L.A. County. Whittier {especially uptown} had retained a lot of its original design as a Quaker settlement named after the great Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier. We enjoyed our location, which was within walking distance of all the cute shops and, more importantly, Starbucks. Incidently, the summer after our oldest was Continue Reading…
December 18, 2008
Geography of Nowhere: Picking on Suburbia?

A wonderfully logical, basic question {or comment which infers a question} came up in the comments yesterday: I never have understood why the target is suburbia. My reply at the time was that my guess was that Kunstler didn’t consider suburbia a place because he has a fairly strict definition of the word. During my reading last night I found the answer: [C]onsider…why the automobile suburb is such a terrible pattern for human ecology. In almost all communities designed since Continue Reading…
December 15, 2008