farmdoc's blog post number 432

One of the golden rules of the recent, and arguably ongoing, golden age of consumerist materialism, is ‘new is good’. A corollary rule is ‘old is bad’. Of course as an old guy I don’t take too kindly to that. And I hope, but don’t expect, the global financial crisis will change it. Turning to films, some old ones become dated, but others remain topical. The 2004 78-minute doco THE END OF SUBURBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream (which you can stream here) is in both categories. Its topic’s encapsulated in its self-explanatory title. It looks and sounds dated, deliberately I think, because suburbia – in the US but in Australia and elsewhere too – is a dated concept. Suburbs were set up without full services because cheap petrol allowed cheap travel to obtain services, including work. But with climbing fuel costs, and maybe global warming and climate change in there somewhere, the suburbs are unsustainable in their current form. The consensus solution is not to abandon the suburbs in favour of city centres, but rather to improve services in the suburbs so they’re self-contained – obviating the need for commuting to work and travelling for services. It’s called ‘Localism’. I see the logic of it. And I can’t see a practical alternative. I don’t know whether it’s happening in the US or elsewhere, but I see no evidence of it happening in Australia. No, our beloved politicians are too preoccupied with the pathetic OzCar nonsense. Ho hum.