KunstlerCast

Is raising children in suburbia a form of child abuse? What happens to developing people when public space is the berm between the Wal-Mart and the K-Mart? When school looks like a maximum security "facility"? When parents are chauffeurs? James Howard Kunstler addresses these topics and speaks of his own experiences growing up in the suburbs of Long Island and in Manhattan.

James Howard Kunstler is one of the most vocal critics of modern urban planning. So it's only fair that in this show Jim fields some questions from the professional planning community. First off, the planners want to know how Jim answers to critics who challenge him on his lack of professional credentials in the planning and architecture fields. Next, a planning professor wants to know: what is the most important thing that cities can do to most improve the quality of the built environment? This show is the result of a special collaboration between The KunstlerCast and Planetizen, the online network for professional planners.

A listener from Flagstaff, Ariz. wants to know what fate awaits his town in the post oil future. The verdict from Jim? At least it's not Phoenix, but most of Flagstaff looks like the service road around Newark Airport. The caller also asks about the new Honda hydrogen fuel cell car, which reminds Jim to bash so-called environmentalist Amory Lovins' fantasy to keep the motoring scene going at all costs. With transcript.

When James Howard Kunstler wrote The Geography of Nowhere, it was to give people "the vocabulary to understand what's wrong with the places they ought to know best." In this installment of the KunstlerCast we run down a few choice Kunstlerisms, like "parking lagoons", "nature Band-Aids" and "patriotic totems." Kunstler also tells us why the depressing topic of suburban sprawl is also really funny.

Ya seen one town in America, ya seen 'em all. But that's because they're all mandated to look that way! In this episode of KunstlerCast, James Howard Kunstler tells the tragic story of zoning codes in the United States. At one time, zoning was a rational response to unpleasant conditions of the newly emerging industrial city. But the fanatical level to which zoning became worshiped by public officials has reduced urban planning from an art form to the mere administration of curb cuts, signage and statistical analysis of traffic flow. With transcript.

How and why did Seattle build that hideous new public library? asks one listener from that city. In this episode of KunstlerCast, James Howard Kunstler tells us how cities get hoodwinked into a status fashion contest to have a museum or library built by one of the celebrity architects of the day. Rem Koolhass, Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman and others are deliberately designing these disastrous, anxiety-inducing mothership UFOs in order to mystify people into thinking they're supernaturally brilliant. And then we're stuck with these Gillette Blue Blade-clad fun houses for decades. With transcript.

In this episode of Kunstlercast, a listener from Columbus, Ohio shares the bad news about two proposed downtown parking garages. Even though James Howard Kunstler thinks the happy motoring scene in America is on the way out, he explains how to design a better parking garage with first-floor retail, a central lightwell and taller ceilings. The Europeans have a better solution, though: the car club. With transcript.

James Howard Kunstler reads from World Made By Hand, his new novel based on the post-oil future. Published by The Atlantic Monthly Press, World Made By Hand is set in upstate New York in the not distant future. It is a fictional account of the ideas based in Kunstler's nonfiction book, The Long Emergency. With transcript.

James Howard Kunstler describes the impending end of cheap oil, which he calls The Long Emergency. Suburbia is a living arrangement with no future. Things are going to get pretty gnarly in the big cities, too. But small cities, that exist at a scale that can be rebuilt, are the places of the future. With transcript.

In this new weekly audio feature called "The KunstlerCast," author James Howard Kunstler and interviewer Duncan Crary explore the tragic comedy of suburban sprawl, with oil depletion as its backdrop. The first program takes a critical look at the American drugstore. With transcript.