Distinguishing between the objective and the subjective is beyond the capacity of most people it seems. I’m not talking about the rabbit hole of philosophical discussions, whatever their value, in which we end up at cogito ergo sum and everything else must be doubted, but rather distinguishing between what we want to be true and what is true.
I finally read a piece at CityLab this week which actually corresponded to my lived experience and yet does not bode well for many of my hopes and dreams. It spoke of the continuing trend of not just suburbanization, but the increasing relative economic strength of suburbs to urban areas. I don’t want this to be the case. There was part of me that so wanted the narrative of young people and retirees moving back to the city in more than just the metros which constitute “the usual suspects” to be the new reality, but it never connected with what I actually witness in the news feeds of my former students, or what I see in the neighborhood that surrounds me.
People prefer big houses on big lots with big SUVs surrounded by anything but another house like their house or any nearby place to engage with strangers. They like the 7 mile drive to get milk and the 37 minute commute to work and only an enforceable economic reality will change those behaviors.
What do I mean by an enforceable economic reality? I mean a circumstance where every option to push off the payment of the actual cost of their lifestyle is gone and the inability to pay in the here and now for the true cost of said lifestyle results in its revocation. Read this essay I found on ZeroHedge this week and let it soak in. Yes, instead of basing their lifestyle on their real economic circumstances what many people do is choose a lifestyle and then figure out a way, using creative financing, to live that life.
But they are doing it. And have been doing it. Successfully. Sometimes for decades and decades.
That means that, as long as people can push out their day of reckoning to its conceptual horizon and beyond, they are the ones living in reality and I’m the one trapped in a fantasy. They’ve been on their luxury vacations, lived in their McMansions, and driven their Escalades; and some of them have died more or less of old age doing so. As I have written many times, I enjoy my, as it turns out, fantasy world of frugality and savings; buying things with cash, vacationing with money I’ve saved, installing insulation and low flow toilets to live more cheaply, growing food in my garden to eat a bit more humbly; but it’s fanciful to to think that I will ever be joined in this endeavor by the society at large unless they are obligated to do so.
The lifestyle I enjoy; urban, walkable, active, a bit loud and heterogeneous, is not what most people want, and they’re not coming to it unless they are brought to it kicking and screaming and, truth be told, I don’t want that. I don’t want that because I know that it will also mean that the aspects of fantastical reality which I enjoy today will also be gone: The overly generous compensation which I receive for my public sector employment; the ridiculous pension I’ve been promised (given average life expectancy which may be part of this ersatz reality) for decades of non-productivity; and perhaps ultimately, cheap, and abundant energy available for use at my whim.
In a corollary to the idea that “markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”, today’s reality can remain in effect for longer than I might remain alive. Even if I do manage to outlive today’s reality I know that its end will entail the exhaustion of most of the best resources, resources that won’t be there to infill and build to full efficiency the urban corridor in which I live. The end product will be lesser than if it had been done under today’s fantasmagorical reality, but that is how it will be done if it is ever done.
In my deluded state it appears that the migration of people on the local, regional, and continental scale is toward places and lifestyles which are destined for catastrophe. That behavior is irrational, and insane; like not having the money to do things but doing them anyway. I have to accept that the lifestyle I enjoy is for most people for whatever reason, the thing which above all else must be avoided; and so it will be avoided.
In truth that seems to leave me in a sort of stasis. To the degree this reality holds my neighborhood will continue to struggle, taking what crumbs it can recover from the festival of hypertrophic growth of the society at large to stave off decline as it has for nearly 100 years. Conversely the collapse of the current paradigm will see its material deconstructed and repurposed as best it can to increase the carrying capacity of this place which may function in an altered reality where decisions have consequences.
Listen Blanche, All we’ve built for the last 70 odd years is tract homes on cul-de-sacs, strip malls, highways, suburban office parks, garden apartment complexes, and big box stores. Even if everyone wanted to live in a traditional Main Street walkable town (which most people absolutely do not) they don’t physically exist – at least not enough to absorb the population. We don’t have the time, the money, the political will, the cultural desire, or the living memory of how to build good walkable towns anymore. So we won’t.
The fever dream of the Zombie Apocalypse that cuts off the easy credit and cheap fuel and forces society to live differently may arrive. But the more likely scenario is a century long slow grinding decline of individual households that no one even notices on a day to day basis.
Today it’s possible to buy a used car with a seven year low interest loan with no credit or income verification. To me that’s evidence that the sellers of cars are willing to do whatever it takes to move inventory even if buyers can’t really afford the product, and the desperation of people with no money to stay on the road no matter what. An unlimited supply of “money” can be created to keep the system lubricated. “Money” in this case being digits on a computer screen.
If you want to imagine a future without easy credit or cheap abundant fuel think on the existing suburban housing stock being pressed in to service as little falling apart homesteads with makeshift shops in the two car garage and vegetables growing where the lawn used to be. People will walk the cul-de-sac and strip mall environment begrudgingly out of necessity when they can no longer drive. And they’ll be cold in winter and hot in summer. Shrug.
Exactly.
Car loans? I just saw an ad for a zero down, zero interest, 6 year loan for…a mattress! Things can stay crazy for longer than I can stay sane.
Perhaps it’s actually irrational to not take advantage of the unfair opportunities available to some of us. Maybe the chance to live comfortably in a quiet safe place, away from the churn of cities, is a very rational response to the market’s distortions that make suburban living available to so many people.
Since suburbia is essentially subsidized by society at large, which pays to support the whole construct of sprawling development, then maybe that lifestyle is be the more rational choice. Of course, suburban living is not sustainable, is not ecologically sound, and is incredibly unjust and damaging to much of society. But if you can arrange the deal for yourself — and there is a vast array of players who will help you arrange that deal — then you score big-time, while everyone and everything else takes a hit.
I look at the well-educated people I know — scientists, doctors, lawyers, planners, consultants and other San Francisco Bay Area types — and nearly all of them are well aware of the ecological collapse we’re living in. But they still take international flights, road trips, Ubers, and have kids. Very few of us can push against the grain of society or even our smaller community of friends and acquaintances, and those of us who do find it lonely and ostracizing. Maybe the only sane response to the insanity of this world is to join in it, and enjoy the ride from the comfort of that suburban living room or the seat of that cushy automobile.
Well said. If I liked suburbia I guarantee I’d act the same way. As my wife says, it all comes down to aesthetics.