Jonathan Last’s thoughtful and important new book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster is a fun read. Policy questions aside, Last provides a fascinating and crystal-clear account of America’s demographic decline. There’s plenty to learn on related issues as well. Last explains, for example, why the recent plateau in divorce statistics may be a bit of an illusion. Family decline is very possibly a good deal more advanced than we’ve realized.I quite like the idea of duelling catastrophes, as if you get the catastrophe of your choosing at the polls.
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It would take a more extended effort from Last to play these ideas out, but what’s striking is how diametrically opposed his vision is to the regnant aspirations of the left. Today’s rage for “sustainability” is largely an effort to draw people out of suburbs and press them instead into tiny, densely-packed urban apartments. Blocking highway construction is a favorite tactic of these greens. That can only compound what Last calls our “coming demographic disaster.” So the supposed solution to the left’s favored cataclysm of global warming is apparently the worst possible step to take in response to the right’s disaster scenario of demographic-economic meltdown. It’s a case of dueling catastrophes.
The left’s anti-suburban project draws heavily on the claim that suburbs kill community, a narrative that seems outdated given the impersonal nature of today’s urban apartments complexes. Last is suggesting that, with a few tweaks, community may actually have more chance at a comeback in the suburbs than the city. That is a novel, fascinating, and potentially very important idea.
But wait a minute...I voted for the flaming radioactive meteor party.
Anyway, the left makes you not have kids by stuffing you into giant Le Corbusier towers. Discuss!
26 comments:
.. ,no sounds but my own ,and no unstill but.. /still leaving my fall behind on the ..to minimalist bend here ,of whatever the plug'ins missing is , what's the tub' of ?
That is a loud and scary song about a tower by local geniuses Nomeansno.
oH, said ..so feral, and how can shh'e so feral be in this dense from all over ..in ..and still be so .. , of what this post is about /, ..i'd like to see what that is of tow er ,maybe after my laundering walk, and to courier drops .. and so on .. i'll wander in to one of the antique shops of one of the slow drummers ..for a look on their .. .
Two duelling catastrophes enter, one catastrophe leaves!
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Okay Anne, the "Atrios bait" bit means that this guy would be driven batty by Stanley Kurtz and his latest worries that what leftists want is high density urban areas...because it's just like birth control.
Le Corbusier is an influential dead architect/kook.
The left’s anti-suburban project
NEA-funded large-scale happening: synchronized driving of spotless SUVs stuffed with useless crap from strip mall to strip mall, at each of which will be staged interpretive dance on the busy emptiness of modern life.
tig' , you're so grim ,said dancing with the floss ,dental
of le cor bus ier , i've said what my daddy did for a living, so what i grew up with all about , around me in living , said over the last few days, of this latest wander off the path from io z/jacobb , of near for all of you ..of from randal to if .., and , mcg , .. and this in town ..out is of interest ..in many ways , but must re set the setting of my room here today , as i work and dance and live all in one ..here , then take my no ice but cold feet out .. .
Well, what you write is a little hard to make sense of, so I really don't know what your story is and what I should make of what you're saying. Nevertheless thank you for bothering with me.
ast is suggesting that, with a few tweaks, community may actually have more chance at a comeback in the suburbs than the city.
Said "tweaks' generally are against the local zoning rules, and will be opposed by the so-called "Architectural Design Review Board" which act to enforce conformity.
Last is trying to cover up the vapidity and dead-endedness of most contemporary American suburbs with a coat of paint and some cheap spackle.
What, it's somehow the LEFT'S fault that people can no longer afford EIFS-coated McMansions on greenfield developed quarter-acres with circular front drives, no sidewalks, and a forty minute drive to buy damn groceries?
Minivans work up a fierce boner in potbellied golfers, which is good because the sound of a garage-door opener makes ladeez swoon.
quic k in ag., hope not a bother in my clips of wanting to say more but not able .. of that "bothering with you ", there is some comfort here ..in this bothering, the floating houses.. , .., when i saw the sled post up ..of near , and so on / i'm assuming in my little bit of looking here , that rot'en does some similar work to what my father did ( those standards are for safety as well as my father would say ), my father went in to drafting because he loves to draw, now paint , but i sense that rotten's reasons are more of building ,like fennesz with a digger near the docks / , and that if.. lives next to a golf coarse of the deer ,and has a place with a lovely manly deck ..somewhere ,/ could i ask what it is that you do , in how it may relate to this post ? of out and in ,
I like to stay as anonymous as possible on that front, but I do a lotta Googling. And time-wasting.
That's why I suspect S_McG (IF that is his real name) is actually a pod person who replaced Righteous Bubba, i.t. worker.
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You might base your whole life on a false theory, plenty of sane and even good people have e.g. miasmas cause disease.
But to base your life on a Jonah Goldberg book long Faaaart! about liberal fascism and Greenies are the new stalinists is just wilful brain self-abuse and he should get help.
Mainly, Substance tries to get people to click on abhorrent links. That, and give everybody migraines with his animated gifs.
Oh now I gotta do one of THOSE.
Blocking highway construction [...] can only compound what Last calls our “coming demographic disaster.”
There is probably some explanation of how a defunding of highway projects reduces family size but I can't be arsed looking for it.
I voted for volcanoes but I could be persuaded, with the right inducement, to switch to flaming radioactive meteors
Our population is only shrinking because it just went swimming.
There is probably some explanation of how a defunding of highway projects reduces family size but I can't be arsed looking for it.
It's harder to get to the next town and your secret second family.
nothing wrong with a large firm bottom , as long as the shoulders don't match (of keeping a healthy heart ), said skinny upper arms ./ didn't get to the antique shop to view ,so please details of all unstill clips , said physically disabled born of why more feral ..
The thing is, the population ISN'T shrinking.
Of course, the white part, the part that's IMPORTANT to him, is reducing it's rate of increase, while the blahs and brahs are not.
THAT'S what they are crying about. "Demographic Disaster" = not enough whiteys.
I'm starting to suspect that a certain commen-tater is the prettiest spambot I've ever seen. Of course, I'm talking about Thunder...
The White Race cannot survive without dairy products and HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION!
flattery will get you no where, Big BBBB.
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