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NOWHERE_PUNK

                                           October 30, 2001
Now let us
return to                NOWHERE_WARNINGS
the bar:

The "decline" of Saratoga's
downtown that Kunstler
describes, could also be taken
as the market self-regulating,       There's a new mall in
adapting to new circumstances.       town, so the little
                                     department store
It's an interesting                  isn't really needed
thought that a marginal              any more.  So it
enterprise like a                    transforms into
punk-rock bar may                    something else, a
require an economic                  restaurant.
decline to open up some
cracks in which it                           The five-and-dime
can thrive.                                  isn't doing very well
                                             (perhaps losing out
  The bust in the                            to supermarkets and
  boom-bust cycle                            the big office supply
  considered as a                            chains), so it
  feature.                                   becomes something
                                             else, a punk-rock bar

            If the shopping
            mall hadn't
            opened, would
            there have been
            any place in
            town for a
            punk-rock bar to              Notably the punk-rock bar
            open?                         provides two things beyond
                                          the province of the
                  And if the city         typical shopping mall.
                  becomes totally
                  planned, is it
                  likely that the
                  government will
                  provide for
                  punk-rock bars
                  in the scheme?


Kunstler has a tendency to
downplay the cases where
the market gets it right.

Here we have the a relatively
typical criticism of the market:

   "Nearly eradicated in the rush       From "The Geography of
   the profit was the concept of        Nowhere" (1993) by
   stewardship, of land as a            James Howard Kunstler
   public trust: that we who are
   alive now are reponsible for
   taking proper care of the                   NOWHERE_MAN
   landscape so that future
   generations can dwell in it
   in safety and happiness."
               p. 26


But a few pages later,                       He forsees necessary change
consider this:                               in "our effort to create a
                                             capitalist economy
   "Philadelphia began as an                 appropriate to our
   experiment in town planning               circumstances"
   that curiously anticipated
   Levittown in its attempt to               "Sustainable capitalism" vs.
   create a city out of                      an "exhaustive capitalism".
   individual houses on large
   lots. [...]"                                 "The physical setting we
                                                presently dwell in itself
   "His [William Penn's] 'Holy                  exhausts our capital."  p.246
   Experiment' quickly proved
   too fanciful and abstract. No
   sooner had Penn doled out the
   first one-acre parcels than                        So where shall be
   their owners subdivided them                       the boundary for
   and sold them off.  Blocks of                      Ceasar's domain?
   row houses and warehouses
   begain to go up along the
   busy waterfront.  Penn
   quickly revised his scheme to
   include a central square..."

               p.31

Here we have an example of
someone doing some stupid
urban planning, which is
then corrected by market
forces.  Doesn't this
undercut the earlier point
a bit?

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