Sprawling from Grace

A documentary feature film about the unintended consequences of suburban sprawl. It illustrates the importance of altering the course of how we develop our nation's cities. It communicates the dangers of continuing to invest in the inefficient horizontal growth patterns of suburban communities, and details how they threaten to bankrupt the remaining wealth of our nation. It explores how the depletion of fossil fuels will impact this living arrangement, and investigates the viability of alternative energies that are currently available. This film sounds the alarm that the cheap fossil-fuel-dependent suburban American way of life is not just at risk. It is in peril!.

Category:

• Documentary

Tags:

• Sprawling
• From
• Grace

[onionofdeath]

Citizens of New York City, Tokyo, and other highly urbanized places have smaller carbon footprints, have shorter commutes, and use less money and energy for transportation. There is a lot of evidence that cities are better for people and the environment. I think that the way cities were being developed at the turn of the last century is a good example of how we should move forward. Not everyone wants to live in the country, and not everyone wants to rely on the car for everything.

[KrunchyJD]

There is a part solution, look at The Netherlands. Compact people scaled cities, and bicycles.

[JoeA320Pilot]

This is why I live in the city.

Plus usually suburban schools tend to do a little better. But after they were retested 3 weeks later they sucked major dick. The effectiveness is completely bad...

[MilitantOldLady]

Dear americans. This is YOUR problem, not the world's. If you have to change the way you live, tough fucking luck.

Sincerely, the rest of the world.

[xxx2397]

@grayzytube why do we need to be a consumer based society then?

[raptorkiller2k5]

@onionofdeath. New York City can certainly improve, though. The boroughs of Queens, Staten Island and even much of the Bronx aren't that sustainable. Most lower income sections of NYC are not as compact and mobile as the affluent sections. We need light rail line in those neighborhoods. Also skyscraper blocks may not fly either, which will have be facing an energy crisis as well. Powering the elevators, and re-cladding is probably going to be quite a challenge as well.

[raptorkiller2k5]

@TheJacobday. In fact, US and other suburban nations are extremely restrictive. Think of the time commuting, and the fact that the majority of free time is spent at home. Just walk around typical suburban Sydney, Houston, or metropolitan New York, rarely ANYONE is outside. One can find plenty of cars, parking lots, traffic, but very little human or pedestrian activity.

Head to Paris, Porto, where walking is life, social scale is default, which isn't even the case in Queens, New York.

[raptorkiller2k5]

@grayzytube. Not really. The metro of Paris has a carbon footprint lower than metros in US that are several times smaller in terms of pop. American suburbia, along with the Australian and Canadian counterpart, is clearly a ticking time bomb. One can maintain the current world population, at the density of Paris, in an area that's smaller than the state of Texas. Per capita CO2 emission of Paris is far lower than the ~6.0 ( vs >20 in US) of France (/w 24% rural pop).

[HolyCity2012]

James H Kunstler dissects suburbia

/Q1ZeXnmDZMQ

check it out

[DragonYearJoji]

New urbanism is necessary to moving beyond the gas guzzling car paradigm. I see much of this already in some parts of Japan. The urban centers need to invest much more heavily in solar energy to be used locally.

[tengoindiamike]

A great documentary that every American should watch.

[grayzytube]

@KrunchyJD I agree with your comments about driving everywhere but this stuff is only symptomatic of the socio-political and economic systems we live under. Educating people to use less is not a good thing for consumer based societies (only about 17% of the world's pop.). Designing products that last (why do I even need a food mixer?) is also counter to consumerism. With oil trading underpinning the dollar.... need I say more?