Re: Dispiriting Suburbs?
On Oct 18, 2006, at 4:14 PM, James Heartfield wrote:
What I find depressing in the LBO discussion is that the radicals
have turned their faces against working class aspirations, leaving
right-wingers like Joel Kotkin to champion their ambitions for self- betterment. No wonder suburbanites vote Republican, if they have to
put up with the blanket condemnation of their lifestyles from
radicals here.The argument that these aspirations are unsustainable seems too
conservative to me. After all, the resource that matters is human
effort, and that is being bent to making homes where people want
them, as opposed to where ’smart growth’ says they should live.
I realize you don’t believe in climate change or other ecological
dangers, which makes it a lot easier to hold this position.
While Americans may tell pollsters that they’re happy, you’ve got to
realize that it’s our patriotic duty to be happy, or at least
simulate happiness. But not everyone’s happy. Quoting myself, from
After the New Economy (p. 274, n. 16):
“The exact figure for antidepressant prescriptions is 142 million in
2003. In 1999–2000, 4% of American men and 10% of American women
reported antidepressant use in the previous month, and the number of
prescriptions has risen considerably since then. In an average recent
year, almost 7% of Americans had a major depressive episode (U.S.
National Center for Health Statistics 2004, pp. 58–61).”