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NOWHERE_PUNK

            
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     
can thrive.                                     The five-and-dime    
                                                isn't doing very well
  The bust in the                               (perhaps losing out  
  boom-bust cycle                               to supermarkets and  
  considered as a                               the big office supply
  feature.                                      chains), so it       
                                                becomes something    
                                                else, a punk-rock    
            If the shopping                     bar                  
            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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