1. Boby Jindal, as Pete says, is a better for choice for Mitt than Rubio. It’s sort of ridiculous to speculate on what kind of demographic impact this or that candidate would have. In every case, the answer is: NOT MUCH. The relatively big issue is how the VP choice makes the P candidate look. Romney’s theme should be grown-up executive competence. So he should pick someone who could plausibly to be said to have the best record of executive accomplishment in the country. That might not literally be Bobby, but the claim can still be made. Having said that, I can add quickly that a Southern, Asian Catholic loved in a very evangelical state can’t hurt. Bobby’s lack of spoken eloquence just won’t make much difference.
2. So in teaching public policy, I did spend a little time on the environmental issue. There’s the view of Roger Scruton that eco-reform needs to begin locally, with love of place and home. That of course is sort of the view of Wendell Berry, although Scruton’s farm/village thing seems a bit more sophisticated (being ENGLISH and all). But there’s the view of the fine book GREEN METROPOLIS that the most eco-sound living situation in America is New York City, with lots of people huddled into small apartments with low energy bills and without cars. Our Manhattanites do a lot more walking in the normal course of their daily lives than the rural agrarians who live around me. They almost never own SUVs or monster trucks. The city is also a very diverse, challenging, and fascinating place to walk, much more interesting that some farm field. And people who grow up in big cities love their neighborhoods and all that as much as small-towners do these days. Their neighborhoods are often full of the sophisticated amenities that smart and educated people can’t help but prefer. If you want a Walmart-free environment, go to Manhattan (or Brooklyn or “Fishtown” etc.). And REAL CITIES are usually more healthy in most ways than Boboized or new-urbanized parts of town. People are more used to living with less. Their environmentalism is less conscious and so less selective. Some middle-class, ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn might be (unconsciously) more eco-sound than Portland, Oregon or Davis, California.
3. So a great threat to the environment, studies show, is TELECOMMUTING of various kinds. That allows sophisticated folks to move to rural areas to get back in touch with the land or nature or whatever. They end up with lots more square feet than they had in the cities, bigger energy costs, and even working from home they do a lot more driving. They never become so immobile that they’re satisfied with the beauty of the field behind the barn. They drive their guts out over distances far longer the whole length of Manhattan island to the various amenities that they’ve become accustomed to etc. With lot of telecommuters, the “social ecology” of this or that small town is ruined by the greedy and so natural impulse for entrepreneurs to satisfy those bloated city desires by introducing ridiculous amenities (expensive designer food made with locally grown organic produce) in the “revitalized” parts of the small town etc. But that only cuts back the amount of driving some…
4. All in all I’m sympathetic to the various efforts to get people out of the suburbs–where people drive way too much in horrible traffic–and back into the cities. But the truth is that middle-class people with kids aren’t into a position to make such a move. They’re not about to spend more for fewer square feet. The relatively densely populated parts of the city of Atlanta are becoming whiter and younger and gayer as they “revitalize.” (So Dr. Pat Deneen couldn’t possibly leave the VA suburbs to move into DC; on to South Bend seemed the only option.)
5. University towns are also eco-friendly, although they become less so as they become crowded in a sprawly (as opposed to a dense) way. Mr. Ceaser, despite all his big talk about big cars, either walks or takes a motor scooter his mile or two to work. University towns, of course, are full of amenities in a way other comparable towns can’t be. Everything is so perfectly livable that everything becomes too expensive for ordinary guys to afford, unless they want to live like graduate students (and who wants that?). The tendency is for people who live in university towns–such as university professors–to never quite grow up. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that–see Allan Bloom’s best-seller.) They certainly aren’t usually about raising their kids the way Berry correctly recommends.
May 3rd, 2012 | 9:33 am
I live in a small to mid-sized town in southern Minnesota having moved from a city in Southwestern Virginia and must agree with much of what you say. The small town is a good place to live, but much of what made for the good of small town life has been disrupted by the changes of the last 50 years that what was once very good and local about small towns has been disrupted. The town is filled with people driving pickups and SUV’s and the conversation is filled with references to trips to Minneapolis and other small cities to make up for what is missing; especially among those who would rather live in the city, but are stuck with work or telecommute.
I must quibble with one statement however: “The city is also a very diverse, challenging, and fascinating place to walk, much more interesting that some farm field.”
As I rode my bike to work on Monday, I rode past a field newly moistened by rain and the smell and taste of the soil was only the first interesting thing that one might find by paying attention to such things. I would encourage you to spend a day searching a field and you would find that they are interesting and challenging places to be than you might at first glance think. They still have a way of connecting and rooting us in a visceral way to things that matter.
I too find Berry less than convincing, but there is something good about the small town that, though significantly eroded, is still of value. A walk in a corn field is still a good tonic for much that ails those of us who may have forgotten where our food still comes from, even if too much of it now goes to providing fuel for the SUV I drove today because I don’t ride my bike in the rain. You are probably correct that much of rural life is less eco-friendly, but that is at least in part due to what Berry criticizes.
May 3rd, 2012 | 9:52 am
I live in a small town too–a failed southern milltown. I park right outside my house on a pretty unwalkable hill, I drive 15 miles to park right outside my office. There’s a lot good about small town life, but my rural life isn’t so eco-friendly. Remember that I’m relatively pro-Walmart, country music, evangelical, and (sort of) rodeo. What I miss from the Porchers is a defense of southern life as it actually IS
these days. I buy local across the board when I can, but that’s a lifestyle choice I can afford these days. I do agree with Scruton that we need to get rid of a lot of the ridiculous health regulations that keep people from growing their own stuff and distributing it locally if that’s what they want to do.
May 3rd, 2012 | 4:55 pm
“What I miss from the Porchers is a defense of southern life as it actually IS these days.”
Today it has sadly become liberal and degraded. Some of the greatest welfare dependencies are in the South.
There is no point in defending the present, if the present is the enemy of the good.
May 3rd, 2012 | 8:47 pm
It’s misleading to say that Manhattanites are more “eco-sound” merely because they have smaller living spaces and are less likely to own cars. Such a lifestyle is only possible because other places are growing their food and producing their goods: they don’t produce tangible things in the city, just marketing campaigns, software products, bank accounts and financial instruments, etc.
When we look out at factory farms and smaller towns stripped of their culture, we need to realize that they’re part of a whole system that can’t be separated from those apartment-dwelling, subway-driving Manhattanites.
May 3rd, 2012 | 10:11 pm
Excellent point.
May 8th, 2012 | 7:37 pm
My wife and I live in the Tri-Cities in southeast Washington. The population in the four cities of Richland, Kennewick, Pasco and West Richland totals about 250,000. The economy here is driven by agriculture (grain, potatoes, fruit, and vineyards) and by the cleanup of the Plutonium production facility that made nuclear weapons material from WW II through the Cold War. My daughter and son-in-law live about 5 minutes drive from ourt house. Their house is 4 doors from the elementary school, a 5 minute walk to church, a half mile to the region’s shopping mall and most of its restaurants and cinemas, a mile to my son-in-law’s work, and a mile to their main doctor’s clinic. They clearly do not use undue resources.
As for Manhattan, my understanding is that their water, which comes from upstate via pipelines and aquaducts, is not metered due to its ancient distribution system. There is no incentive to conserve water. By contrast, out here my water bill during summer months is higher than my electric power bill.
The more fundamental question is, can people who are not stockbrokers even afford to live in major cities? Seattle real estate is so expensive that law firms in the city have a difficult time finding homes for their staff who are not attorneys. The lack of affordable housing close in forces the lower income employees to live an hour+ commute away. That time and the money is steals from them is a real social justice issue, though it is never acknowledged when more and more restrictions are imposed on development of new housing, which raises the value of the real property that richer people have been able to buy, while freezing ordinary people out of the housing market, not just buying, but even renting.
May 12th, 2012 | 3:32 pm
Another good post. No part of the US has escaped those kinds of social and political corruptions.
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