Do we know - I mean *really* know - what's coming?

Tonight I came across a fairly technical interview, originally from Cluster magazine by way of the Doors of Perception blog that focuses on the interlinked ideas of economics, urban design (and management of that design), architecture, and how all of these will respond to the spiking energy costs.

Here are a couple of highlights:

All cities are part of a larger ecology of resource extraction, energy use, environmental impact, waste flows, and social networks. The rules that govern how this larger ecology works - or not - are political rules shaped by an era in which we could burn cheap fossil fuel while ignoring the ecological consequences. That era is now over, and its eco-cidal politics (and economic development) have become obstacles to our survival. The only meaningful task of design, now, is to help people transform the ways they obtain food, energy, materials, and water - in cities, or outside them. This kind of design is of course “political” in that it opposes the demands of industrial society for limitless resources in a world whose carrying capacity is finite. But ecodesign - and hence, eco politics - is about new ways of inhabiting places; it is not about new ways of organising representative government.

and

Cluster: Many cities invest in the quality of their architecture to show the world an attractive, dynamic face. The big names and big projects are given the task of conveying the centrality and ability of cities to attract high-class players. But the dynamic image of a city does not always correspond to its ability to make room for the creative energies of its inhabitants.

JT. Show me a city with a “dynamic image” and I will show you an unsustainable city. “Dynamic” usually means high entropy buildings, financial speculation on a massive scale, and a low degree of social participation. From now on, the most interesting cities will be those whose citizens are able to invest their energy and creativity on “re-inhabitation” within the unique ecosystems of their place. This approach will often involve adaptive or more intense uses of existing infrastructure rather than the construction of signature buildings - and sometimes this approach will mean building nothing, nothing at all. To live sustainably we need to place more value on the here and now: a lot of destruction is caused when design is obsessed with the there, and the next - and the “dynamic”.

Read the whole article here.

Ironically, two of my friends were just having this conversation about what truly bad shape Phoenix is going to be in if the economy continues to worsen. While lately I've heard some commentators say that economic figures lately are looking better, I'm hearing others say that the continued rise in fuel costs will plainly bring about a recession, and more mainstream writers are continuing to talk about a depression, although it seems like this talk has lessened a great deal over the past 4 to 6 weeks.

Regardless, I'm hearing about more people here in Phoenix being out of work and also hearing about layoffs in companies, especially those that seem to rely on disposable income.

Is the future of Greater Phoenix a bizarre form of picture-perfectly identical suburban homes on the fringes of town gradually deteriorating into abandonment and desperation? Our whole economy of Phoenix is built around being able to drive long distances, to get to the mall, to get to the store, etc.

Some acquaintances of mine continue to trumpet the light rail, having this view that people will just "take the light rail" everywhere. That may work for those living in the central corridor, but it's far, far from the panacea that these people think that it will be. Molly in Maryvale and Paul in Peoria will not be able to just hop on some form of mass transit and get to their work in, say, east Phoenix.

We may very well see SUVs abandoned to the repo man as people simply cannot afford to drive them. Or worse- we'll see formerly middle-class people living out of the SUVs. Can you imagine huge parking lots full of SUVs in our modern version of Hoovervilles?

Yes, this is worst-case here . . . but imagine what a post-economic apocolypse Phoenix would look like? A lot of us living in central cities are going to be very hungry - we don't know how to grow our own food, and there's nowhere for us to do it. If buses are still running to get working people to their jobs, they will be filled to overflowing. Among the lucky few who come together, households will have to be combined into something resembling mini communes.

Of course, we could go on and on with these kinds of speculations - but the important thing to remember is that the economy will adjust after a long period of settling down into a wholly new life and things will get better. They won't be the "better" that we think of today, since so much of our wealth and prosperity over these past 80 years has depended on cheap and easy access to energy.

But as those who are my age get firmly into our middle age years, we may have an amazing world we live in that is far cleaner, far healthier, far more sustainable, and far less wasteful and far more innovative than we do now.

The question is how much suffering (and even bloodshed) will there be before this happens?

I hate to tell all y'all, but it's going to hit all of us powerfully, which means that the poor family we hear about living in the shelter, or the low-hanging-fruit friend we hear about who's never been able to hold down a decent job are what we all could very well experience not long from now.

Because we do reap what we sow, and it's gonna get personal.