KunstlerCast

KunstlerCast #13: Personal Transit & Green Buildings

Thu, 8 May 2008 19:49:00 GMT

James Howard Kunstler takes questions on personal rapid transit, sustainable green buildings and the happy motoring program in America. He also scolds us for us referring to ourselves as consumers. This show is the result of a special collaboration between The KunstlerCast and Planetizen, the online network for professional planners.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast#12: Gentrification

Thu, 1 May 2008 17:17:00 GMT

A listener from Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. wants to know about the ethics of gentrification. What happens to the poor people who get pushed out of the cities when wealthier people move in? James Howard Kunstler addresses how abnormal it is that American city centers are primarily inhabited by poor people. Jim and Duncan also touch upon the racial dimensions of gentrification.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast#11: Picturing Suburbia

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:41:00 GMT

When James Howard Kunstler isn't railing against suburban sprawl, he's painting it. Vincent van Gogh painted the peasant sleeping by the haystack because he was living in a landscape populated by people. Our landscape is populated by cars. So, as a sur la motif painter of our time, Jim's subjects include cars on the road, gas stations and the industrial ruins of America's manufacturing past. Making this landscape legible on the canvas is a challenge, but it's also dangerous! An angry manager once told Jim that painting the Burger King is not allowed.

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KunstlerCast #10: Children of the Burbs

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:16:00 GMT

Is raising children in suburbia a form of child abuse? What happens to developing people when public space is the berm between the Wal-Mart and the K-Mart? When school looks like a maximum security "facility"? When parents are chauffeurs? James Howard Kunstler addresses these topics and speaks of his own experiences growing up in the suburbs of Long Island and in Manhattan.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast_10.mp3

KunstlerCast #9: Urban Planning

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:57:00 GMT

James Howard Kunstler is one of the most vocal critics of modern urban planning. So it's only fair that in this show Jim fields some questions from the professional planning community. First off, the planners want to know how Jim answers to critics who challenge him on his lack of professional credentials in the planning and architecture fields. Next, a planning professor wants to know: what is the most important thing that cities can do to most improve the quality of the built environment? This show is the result of a special collaboration between The KunstlerCast and Planetizen, the online network for professional planners.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast_09.mp3

KunstlerCast #8: The Glossary of Nowhere

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 17:55:00 GMT

When James Howard Kunstler wrote The Geography of Nowhere, it was to give people "the vocabulary to understand what's wrong with the places they ought to know best." In this installment we run down a few choice Kunstlerisms, like "parking lagoons" , "nature Band-Aides" and "patriotic totems." Kunstler also tells us why the depressing topic of suburban sprawl is also really funny.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast_08.mp3

KunstlerCast #7: Fate of Flagstaff & Hydrogen Cars

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:14:00 GMT

A listener from Flagstaff, Ariz. wants to know what fate awaits his town in the post oil future. The verdict from Jim? At least it's not Phoenix, but most of Flagstaff looks like the service road around Newark Airport. The caller also asks about the new Honda hydrogen fuel cell car, which reminds Jim to bash so-called environmentalist Amory Lovins' fantasy to keep the motoring scene going at all costs.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast_07.mp3

KunstlerCast #6: Zoning

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:24:00 GMT

Ya seen one town in America ya seen 'em all. But that's because they're all mandated to look that way! James Howard Kunstler tells the tragic story of zoning codes in the United States. At one time, zoning was a rational response to unpleasant conditions of the newly emerging industrial city. But the fanatical level to which zoning became worshiped by public officials has reduced urban planning from an art form to the mere administration of curb cuts, signage and statistical analysis of traffic flow. *Note to re-broadcasters: curse words at 8:48 mins.

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KunstlerCast #5: Starchitects

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:49:00 GMT

How and why did Seattle build that hideous new public library? asks one listener from that city. James Howard Kunstler tells us how cities get hoodwinked into a status fashion contest to have a museum or library built by one of the celebrity architects of the day. Rem Koolhass, Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman and others are deliberately designing these disastrous, anxiety-inducing mothership UFOs in order to mystify people into thinking they're supernaturally brilliant. And then we're stuck with these Gillette Blue Blade-clad fun houses for decades.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

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KunstlerCast_05.mp3

KunstlerCast #4: Parking Garages

Thu, 6 Mar 2008 05:06:00 GMT

A listener from Columbus, Ohio shares the bad news about two proposed downtown parking garages. Even though James Howard Kunstler thinks the happy motoring scene in America is on the way out, he explains how to design a better parking garage with first-floor retail, a central lightwell and taller ceilings. The Europeans have a better solution, though: the car club.

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KunstlerCast_04.mp3

KunstlerCast #3: World Made By Hand

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:07:00 GMT

James Howard Kunstler reads from World Made By Hand, his new novel based on the post-oil future. Published by The Atlantic Monthly Press, World Made By Hand is set in upstate New York in the not distant future. It is a fictional account of the ideas based in Kunstler's nonfiction book, The Long Emergency.

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KunstlerCast_03.mp3

KunstlerCast #2: Small Cities & Towns

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:05:00 GMT

James Howard Kunstler describes the impending end of cheap oil, which he calls The Long Emergency. Suburbia is a living arrangement with no future. Things are going to get pretty gnarly in the big cities, too. But small cities, that exist at a scale that can be rebuilt, are the places of the future.

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KunstlerCast_02.mp3

KunstlerCast #1: Drugstores

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:00:00 GMT

James Howard Kunstler rips on drugstores: the one-story, junk food- dispensing boxes that masquerade as buildings on America's street corners. Topics include: monocultural zoning; big retail vs. mom & pop; separating the business programming from the container that it comes in; and the destiny of these awful structures after the cheap oil fiesta is over.

(Info about program and theme music at KunstlerCast.com)

Direct Download:
KunstlerCast_01.mp3