Past the Peak Actions everyone can take to prepare for the possible end o

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http://www.cleanhouston.org/energy/features/oilactions.htm

I'm afraid these so called policymakers will come to the table only after its too late.. But you have to love Kunstler..

Policymakers at all levels of government seem blithely unaware of the potential challenges ahead. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland and the city of Portland, Oregon, are among the exceptions. Smaller communities like Willits, California, and Yellow Springs, Ohio, are banding together to anticipate and provide for what they believe is an inevitable and potentially cataclysmic shift in lifestyle.

Should residents of Houston, a city built on cheap energy and that generates 140 million miles of vehicle traffic daily, using 4.5 million gallons of gasoline, be concerned? Absolutely, says Jim Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century.

“Well, this may not be a happy thought,” Kunstler says, “but the folks in Houston may have to lower their expectations about what kind of life will be possible in Houston. Houston has become what it is because of cheap car travel and cheap air conditioning. These are two things that may not be with us much longer – and I would not necessarily count on alternative fuels to do exactly what oil and methane gas have done for us in the past.

“Houston will have to face two very serious problems,” Kunstler says. “It has a very challenging climate, and the development pattern already built and in place, namely suburban sprawl, has poor prospects for usefulness in the near future.

“I would add a third consideration,” Kunstler continues. “Virtually everything in our daily lives is going to have to be re-scaled, from the way we do business and trade, to education, to farming. To be more precise, these things will have to be downscaled in an energy-scarcer future. This applies to cities, too. And the US cities that are most characterized by a sprawling suburban pattern will be the most severely challenged.

“I'm convinced that all our cities will have to contract substantially. Many of them may densify at the centers and along their waterfronts even as they contract in population and serviceable area. Houston, in my opinion, is a city that may become especially small. While it is connected to the Gulf of Mexico by waterways, it has no harbor or waterfront per se, in the sense of, say, Baltimore or Charleston, so this is an additional factor in Houston's ability to remain a substantial city.”

[kestrel91316]

1. Old Town Pasadena (CA) is doing a cool thing -

lots of mixed-use development. Commercial space at ground level, parking below ground, and residential units several stories above. Sort of reminds me of Paris.

A step in the right direction..................