David Roberts

Rebuilding society

Staff writer for Grist, Apr 11, 11.

Tagged with cities, energy, infrastructure, walkable urbanism, national security

I had plenty of complaints about Obama’s big energy security speech last week—see here and here. Most of them centered on his crassly political decision to put supply-side solutions first, despite the fact that supply is a red herring; all the serious solutions are demand-based.

There’s one complaint I didn’t say much about, which I wanted to amplify: In the speech and in the accompanying materials, short shrift is given to land-use change, urban density, and transit.

For a gentle version of that critique, here’s urbanist champion Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.):

I would suggest that we add a fifth element to this plan, which is support for livable communities that combine smart transportation alternatives, land use and design to keep communities resilient and reduce the impact of high gas prices. The Obama administration’s very own Sustainable Communities Partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and Department of Housing and Urban Development has provided key leadership in this area and has helped communities across the country make investments to provide transportation and housing choices that conserve oil without sacrificing economic growth. Livable, walkable communities benefit local economies, increase quality of life and enable healthy lifestyles.

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Obama has taken extremely tentative steps in that direction, but what he hasn’t done is communicate the basic predicament to the public. As is his (maddening) wont, he simply accepts public opinion as it currently stands and does what he can on the margins to get good policy out of it. (That—public opinion—is why drilling played such a big role in his speech.)

Sooner or later, though, someone’s going to have to tell the American people: We built our society around oil. Oil is running out (British bank HSBC says we’ve got about 50 years). So we have to rebuild our society around using less oil. That means getting away from highways and toward dense, walkable communities where walking, biking, and transit are the default options. That’s a huge job, it’s going to take years and trillions of dollars, and we’re rapidly running out of time, so the time to start is now.

Without that basic framework, how is the public supposed to assess the confusing grab bag of energy policies that floats down to them from the political sphere?