So this article shows up today on Ars Technica, about how great the future’s gonna be when the cars can drive themselves. Matthew Yglesias weighs in to discuss how this will affect transportation and city planning. Ryan Avent riffs on this, speculating about how these self-piloting cars will be a shared-resource, and make suburban density more appealing, and what a great thing they’ll be for urban areas. Then someone disagrees with Ryan’s vision, positing his own wild speculation, which gets a thoughtful reply.

And the whole thing got me thinking about something James Kunstler said, about how most people’s thoughts about the future revolve around what we’re gonna put in our cars after the gasoline’s gone, and what it says about what people think is coming in the future. So I said so in the comments at Matt’s place, and this was one reply:

Kunstler is an idiot.

There was a short mention of how the author of The Geography of Nowhere and The Long Emergency (as well as several novels) was “not a reasonable analyst about the things he’s analyzing”.

And then everyone went back to speculating, discussing, agreeing with some assertions, contesting others, and generally trying to predict what colors our unitards will come in during the next phase, the Age of Happier Motoring, when the cars will be driving themselves.

The Internet is a funny, funny place.

Y’ever get the feeling that all the hubbub about energy independence, even if earnest, is missing the mark?

James Kunstler’s got that feeling:

The reason our energy debate is so hollow and idiotic is because we can’t face this basic reality. The fantasy-du-jour among both political parties is that we can become “energy independent.” By this they mean we can keep on living the way we do by means other than oil. This is just not true. We have to make profound changes in everything we do from the way we inhabit the landscape to the way we produce our food. Lately, the only change we’ve shown any interest in is changing what our cars run on. But that is not going to rescue us, not even a little. Our inability to talk about anything else except the cars will drag us down into poverty and turmoil.

I turn to the estimable Lawrence for my response:

Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I guess… I don’t know. Sometimes I get the feeling like she’s cheating on me.

Lawrence: Yeah, I get that feeling too, man.

Paul Krugman talks about what a Future That Doesn’t Suck might look like, and he thinks it might look like Europe, where gas is about $8/gallon (emphasis mine):

Any serious reduction in American driving will require more than this — it will mean changing how and where many of us live.

To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

It’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea?

An objection that comes up frequently in any discussion of changing our way of getting around is that people will never give up their cars, that they’d rather drive alone than ride a bike, take the bus, or take a train to work.

Now I understand that many people making this claim haven’t had the experience of living somewhere with a functioning, useful public transit system. But I also know that folks from urban sprawl centers do have the experience of trying to get from point A to point B in a city like Los Angeles or Atlanta, and know how jaw-grindingly, wheel-poundingly aggravating it is to do 3 miles per hour on a freeway filled with single-occupant automobiles. They have to have experienced the hostility and stupidity of inching and crawling through gridlocked surface streets, and I know I’m not the only one who has looked upon the thick, brown layer of smog that periodically hovers over such a city and thought, “I can’t believe I raise children in this air”.

And it always puzzles me as to why anyone would choose that over… well, over anything else that isn’t that? I always thought people did this because there wasn’t a better alternative, not because it was the most desirable option. Does having one’s own HVAC and stereo system really make up for everything else? Is it just a failure of imagination that people can’t envision their city with functioning pedestrian, bicycle, and public transit infrastructures? Is it a failure on the part of those of us who can see that future to compete with Madison Avenue’s car-culture message?

…perhaps by bringing the farm on up here?

My wife just sent me a link to this story on CNN about a village in England where they’ve started a farm co-op. It’s a small operation, enough to feed the approximately 100 families involved and have some left over to sell at a market.

I find this model compelling, because the people doing the farming aren’t full time farmers, but rather folks who all live there, and who have some time to contribute. I’m attracted to small sustainable agriculture in the near-term because of all the obvious reasons (quality of food and nutrient density, short travel distance, giving money to local growers instead of Archer Daniels Midland, etc). In the long term, I think we’re all going to have to learn to take care of ourselves again as culture, politics and life become what James Kunstler calls “profoundly local”.

But right now, this very minute, the thought of taking on several acres of growing land in an agriculture area and handling all aspects of the growing food and raising livestock from seed and piglet to table and market is daunting. The work is hard, which is fine. But Rebbie and I have spent most of our adult lives as urban animals, so there’s also the question of whether or not we could handle the geographic and cultural isolation of living where the farmland is, whether or not farming’s even something I’d be good at? Even if we found out that we’re natural born agriculturistas, the scale and the accompanying risks of taking on too much and losing it all are also really scary.

Hampshire’s Village Co-op is a whole different game. The scale isn’t so large, the work and the risk doesn’t have to be shouldered by any one family, and the location isn’t far away from the community. It is the community. In fact, if I’m understanding how their system works, farming isn’t even the primary occupation of most of these farmers, nor is profit the primary motivation. All of that suits me just fine, and seems like something a family could join and try without staking a life savings on.

And a community that grows its food together means a community that can have a potluck without a single three-bean salad showing up. Think about it. Make one huge portion of one dish with locally grown, freshly picked vegetables, enjoy bits of 20 such dishes with your neighbors. Sounds good to me!

With “Green Acres” bein’ our backyards, far-r-r-r-m livin’ can be not-so-hard. (You got that song in your head now, don’t ya? Sorry about that.)