Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-road-to-exurbia/29478/ en-us Design Observer Group 2011-09-12T01:52:27-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0
The publication offers some solutions to some of the problems brought up in this essay.

A PDF of the document can be downloaded from the ICMA:
http://bit.ly/9RU5uw

Here's a summary from the rural blog Daily Yonder:
http://bit.ly/96tO4u]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-road-to-exurbia/29478/#comments 2011-09-12T01:52:27-05:00
Short of taking the bus, which seems not a popular way to go, all the Waldenesque virtues come at the price of one great vice: oil. Gasoline to get there. When the cost of oil escalates, driving up the price of gasoline, are the Exurbians going to change their habits or will they join the chorus clamoring for "more cheap oil"?

And what about global warming? Will climate change-affected exurbian life in the future become dystopian, a constant battle to repel refugees from warmer climes? What if -- or rather, when -- the trees start to wither and the pond dries up? What do we do? Drive less now, consume less fresh water now, to preserve it for a future in which access to these wonders will be more difficult?

I deeply empathize because I grew up on a California shore that was similarly uncomplicated and pristine. Now it is unrecognizable except for all the cavorting young financiers and their sports cars. We -- those of us from the neighborhood -- never found the way to preserve what was beautiful and iconic. We're left with nothing.

It all makes me very sad. It's good to record an era before it passes. But what then?]]> http://places.designobserver.com/feature/the-road-to-exurbia/29478/#comments 2011-09-07T17:07:29-05:00