Are we a metropolitan nation?

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"I don't consider being adequately fed and healthy to be wasteful. What I do consider wasteful is using far more resources than necessary to be healthy and well-fed and willfully continuing to so even when better options are available. Clearly we are being wasteful when we use at least twice as much energy per capita as numerous nations that live longer, healthier lives than we do."

So, you're basing your definition of "wasteful" on energy use and resource use as measured against "numerous nations" whose people "live longer, healthier lives than we do". I notice with irony that you don't mention "happiness" in that little socialist equation of yours. However, who is the poohbah who has made the decision that your definition is the one to rule MY life, even assuming I could agree that you might be correct? What right do you imagine that you have to impose your vision on ME? And yes, I do claim a right to call you a hypocrite, since now your standard of 'wasteful' is obviously based on DEVELOPED nations, which means you desire a certain standard of living, regardless of whether THAT standard would be considered by an Ethiopian as wasteful.

I'd like to go into a deep analysis of what you said, Devin, but what's the point? You won't change what's left of your mind, and I won't change mine.

Suffice it to say that I work every day against the ideas of people like you, and Walter Winch, and I won't stop. Rational evaluation has led me to understand the motivations of those like yourselves, who seem to be incredibly guilty that anyone, especially a nation built on liberty and freedom of choice, could be so successful in comparison to the rest of the world. Yet, so many people from so many other nations want to come in here - are you then saying THEY are morally flawed as well? Are you saying the Mexicans flooding over the unsecured border are wrong to desire what we have already?

I really don't care - by the way, the steaks were perfect, the conversation scintillating and the wine very good. We all toasted to the flag of the United States, and the brave men and women who protect us in the military.

"No? Then you're a hypocrite, because you're 'wasteful' compared to others who have less than you, if one is naive enough to buy into your BS."

Yes, of course, I'm a hypocrite for considering anybody beyond myself. Because it's hypocritical to consider the welfare of others unless you're willing to renunciate everything you enjoy in your own life, right? I don't consider being adequately fed and healthy to be wasteful. What I do consider wasteful is using far more resources than necessary to be healthy and well-fed and willfully continuing to so even when better options are available. Clearly we are being wasteful when we use at least twice as much energy per capita as numerous nations that live longer, healthier lives than we do. That's just bad economics, spending twice as much or more and getting no more in return (in some cases less). I walk to work and on many errands. This costs me nothing, and in fact I benefit from it as it makes me healthier. Yet the suburban development model requires everybody to buy a car and use it to get anywhere we need to go, despite the fact it's an incredibly expensive and dangerous mode of transportation. In supporting the suburban model, countless walkable communities were bulldozed or simply abandoned. This is the waste I oppose, waste that contributes nothing to the anybody's well-being and takes other people's choices away in the process.

But let's be honest, this has nothing to do with the environment or waste. The emphasis you place on the fact that you "EARNED" everything you have make it clear that what really bothers you is the idea that you benefit from an incredibly fortuitous national history that has placed an incredible amount of wealth at your disposal. You did not create America's wealth. You benefit from it. You may have worked for your money, but the opportunity to work for as much money as you've made is a rare opportunity. If you had been born to tribes-people in the Saharan Desert, you would not have any of the wealth you enjoy. You are the lucky beneficiary of a great fortune that you did not earn. You can either behave like a spoiled prince that feels entitled to every last cent of your inheritance, or you can understand that you are blessed and have a responsibility to share that blessing with others. Sleep well, little prince, sleep well.

"who choose to live in a wasteful fashion ..."

Devin, that's what this and the global warming nonsense is all about, isn't it? It's not cul-de-sacs per se that get under your thin skin, it's this concept of 'wasteful' that drives you and your ilk to seek to impose your vision as the model template by which everyone else must live. It's almost biblical in nature, your angst about waste, and it makes me angry that you consider that lifestyle wasteful yet I'm sure you don't consider yours as such, but if you compared yours to that of a tribal member in a primitive Amazon jungle, you'd be incredibly 'wasteful'. Does that mean you're going to give up access to all things powered by electricity, including those laughable CFL bulbs and the computer you posted your note on? Will you give up all transportation, including mass transportation, and simply walk to where you need to go? Will you eat only what you can hunt with nothing more than a spear or bow and arrow, use only what can be handmade, and gather only vegetation that you've grown? Will you compost your own waste?

No? Then you're a hypocrite, because you're 'wasteful' compared to others who have less than you, if one is naive enough to buy into your BS.

Me, I'm firing up the lump charcoal in the Big Green Egg smoker tonight, throwing on a nice thick KC Strip with some sliced red onions, smoking both and finishing them off with a very good red Zinfandel, followed surely by a few single malt scotches. Sure, it's wasteful compared to a suffering refugee camp survivor somewhere in the world (due to the wonderfully humane regimes that seem to abound outside of the U.S. in the less wasteful societies), but I don't live my life by comparing it to the other 6+ billion lives on the Earth, and I sleep extremely well at night, because I EARNED my resources by hard work in a capitalist society and I am FREE to dispose of them in the manner and amount I choose, according to law. And that law is exactly what I don't want people like you degrading to match your vision of how MY life should be lived.

Suburban development depends upon US monopolization of global resources. As long as the US controls the world's supply of energy, we can waste it however we want, and since WWII we have chosen to waste it on a vastly inefficient style of living. In terms of economics and energy-efficiency, it makes no sense to require people to move a ton of metal several miles (or often much more) to accomplish any economically productive activity (working, shopping, etc.).

Unfortunately for us, India and China have massive emerging middle classes that want access to energy as well. At some point in the next few decades (and many oil experts say it's already beginning to happen) we'll reach a point where we can't find new oil reserves fast enough to keep up with demand. Inevitably following that will be the point where we can't pump and refine oil fast enough to keep up with demand. And inevitably following that will be the point that societies that cannot exist without access to energy reserves exceeding what they can harvest from renewable resources will rapidly collapse. We can continue to be dependent upon the hope that new discoveries can bail us out, or we can learn to live once again as humanity has always lived--in self-reliant communities with limited trade that does not require their big government to subsidize their lifestyle by monopolizing the world energy supply.

As those of us who believe in the self-reliant approach go about the business of trying to rebuild communities, we're constantly having to deal with the many ways society (i.e. our tax dollars) subsidizes those who wish to continue the balkanization of American society. The latest big proposal, McCain's idea of eliminating fuel taxes and make everybody bear the burden of those who choose to live in a wasteful fashion, is comical and horrifying at the same time. This is why urban-dwellers tend to disapprove of the suburban life-style. As energy costs continue to soar, America, being the most energy-inefficient of all developed societies, will certainly be hit the hardest. And chances are the fallout will not isolate itself to the suburbs.

As much as you want to think of the silver bullet that will herd all the people back to the urban areas, it won't work. Wax poetically all you like but the reality is people have evolved to today's preference for suburban lifestyles. There are still people who prefer the urban hustle and bustle so by all means, make their life good too. Cul de sacs are here to stay because WE want them, not because you don't.

I am a lifelong urban dweller who is happy in the suburbs now and will never move back no matter what. Some urbanites despise people who feel that way. Why?

Actually, the suburbs are part of the metro areas that Brookings addresses. Keep the cul-de-sac. Miriam Pepper

The wonderful Brookings Institute, a hallowed name of liberalism, doesn't like suburbs and wants to concentrate people into metro areas.

Hmmmm, let's see - Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Wash DC, NYC, Detroit - oh yeah, boy, those are first on anyone's list of highly desirable areas to raise a family.

Lol - no thanks, I'll keep my cul-de-sac in the suburbs.