Do As I Say Not as I Do

I have very few beefs with very few people. I like to think that I can see both sides of argument while not backing down.

However, there is one person who raises my hackles like no one else. And that is David Owen, author of Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability. Owen's book's premise is actually quite good and he gave me a lot to think about. See my review of his concepts in my other blog, http://futureurbanplanner.blogspot.com

Where my blood pressure starts to rise is when he says that he doesn't live in some New York high-rise, like the ones that he espouses. He lives in suburban Connecticut. In a single family home. And drives a car. This flies in the face of his thesis who says that New Yorkers are technically the greenest citizens in the USA, as they live in high-density housing, which requires less energy, they consume less as they have smaller living spaces, and often don't own cars.

I was livid as I continued to slog through his words and waited, gnashing my teeth, to find out his rationalization to live in the suburban countryside. Finally, he revealed that if he (and his wife) moved (back) to New York (they had lived there as newlyweds in the 1970s but moved when they had their firstborn) then some Hummer-driving, energy-sucking, lights on all the time people would move in to their former home. That was lame.

Owen gets on his high horse about why we should live in the cities. But he fails to take into consideration that we are socially conditioned to "want" to live in the suburbs. It's subliminal messaging of an epic scale, that has been going on for years. Even the chic urban living lifestyle catalogs like Crate and Barrel aren't espousing the merits of the city, they're parading a lifestyle and wanting you to literally buy into it.

In contrast, Metroburbia USA by Paul L. Knox chronicles the American aspiration to live in bigger and bigger homes and the cultural norms and messages that tell us that a house in the burbs is the ultimate achievement. There are whole industries whose sole purpose is to get us to buy a house in the suburbs and fill it with useless stuff, somehow thinking that these new shiny things will make us happy. And they do. But it is only temporarily. And the cycle repeats itself.

I don't mind pathochuli smelling, Birkenstock wearing, tie dye enthusiasts telling me that I kill a polar bear every time I turn on the ignition. Because if they live 100% by their beliefs, composting their poo and living lightly on the land I should be slapped on the wrist for going into Target to buy tape and coming out with an armload of plastic crap.

But I am for moderation in all things and yelling at people doesn't help especially when they see the world totally different than you.

Education, not lecturing, is the way to go if we want people to listen to what we have to say.