KunstlerCast - Suburban Sprawl: A Tragic Comedy
James Howard Kunstler, author of The Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and World Made By Hand, takes on the converging catastrophes of the 21st century. Features a new guest each month. (Note: Episodes 1 - 214 featured conversations between Duncan Crary and JHK during the years 2008 through 2012 and focused on the topics of suburban sprawl, disposable architecture and the end of the cheap oil era.)

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.

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

Direct Download (7 MB):
KunstlerCast_11.mp3

Direct download: KunstlerCast_11.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:41pm EDT

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)

Direct Download (7 MB):
KunstlerCast_10.mp3

Direct download: KunstlerCast_10.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:16pm EDT

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)

Direct Download (7.1 MB):
KunstlerCast_09.mp3

Direct download: KunstlerCast_09.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:57am EDT

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)

Direct Download (7 MB):
KunstlerCast_08.mp3

Direct download: KunstlerCast_08.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:55pm EDT