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This describes the college experience for many of us. I lived on a college campus where all our needs were met within walking distance. I had no car or bike for four years, and I didn't miss them. We could hop on a bus to go to the nearest city, or ski slopes. I think a lot of retirees seek out small college towns for the same reason. They may not walk everywhere, but they can simplify their lives by having everything they need close by.
Good luck putting the 1000 person manufacturing plant complete with 18 wheelers at the dock 24 hours a day (three shifts, remember!), refrigerated air tanks blowing off excess pressure, the refrigerated compressed air dryer blowing off its regneneration ten times a day, the 1000 HP of compressors in the compressor yard cycling all day and night, the chilled water coolers ditto, and all the rest of the environment around a place where wealth is actually created, not just moved round - into that "Live-work-play" neighborhood.
Some of you folks need to drive through the industrial Midwest and see the miles and miles of manufacturing plants that created and continue to create a very large part of the wealth of this nation, to understand that the pipe dream of having everyone who works there living within an easy 15 minute walk is simply a fantasy.
I don't think you'll find miles & miles of manufacturing plants anywhere anymore-- maybe miles of ware houses...I was talking about small factories employing only a couple dozen or less in
Chicago's neighborhoods-- but there's almost no manufacturing done in the US anymore compared to by-gone days....and almost none of that in the fashion of the old tall smoke stacks belching coal exhaust factories of the old Rust Belt.
Today, most people are employed in desk work & service industry jobs. The Fed Govt is the nation's largest employer (and apparently about to get bigger if the Puppeteers have their way)-- and they don't make anything but trouble...Those jobs can be performed in small neighborhoods.
You're right that some heavy industry is not going to fit in with a small town/ walkable neighborhood style living situation...That's why we need a multiplicity of choices to fit the multiple needs of multiple groups.
Central control/one-size-fits-all is antithetical to long term sustainability and success. MotherNature is the archetypical capitalist-- She's constanty experimenting with new start-ups (mutations). Most fail. Only a few succeed, and there's often more than one solution to a given problem.
Americans often don't appreciate how our relative wealth gives us so much feedom to exercise options....Those yuppie types who cross their "7s" to signal that they have been to Europe and idolize that lifestyle, fail to realize that the common European sacrifrices daily financial freedom for the security of their "social safety nets." Most working class people there can't afford to drive 1000 miles for a vacation every year....They live that lifestyle because they have to.
With a name like "GuidoLaMoto" you're making fun of Europhiles?
Europeans have access to an incredible rail system that Americans can only dream of, providing a different kind of freedom Americans don't enjoy.
My screen name is a play on words in Italian. La Moto is short for la motocicletta (motor cycle), kinda like we call it a bike. While Guido is a proper name, it also translates as "I dirve."
There are many things European that are superior to those American, but also many of those things are done there not by choice, but forced by economic considerations-- small cars in Europe were preferred not only because their old city streets were small, but because fuel was so expenive-- even more so in the past than it is now....Last time I was there, gas was $5/gal when it was 75c/gal here. People rode bikes (motorized or not) because they couldn't afford to drive.
Without opening the whole socialized govt thing, suffice it to say that the birth rate in Europe is going down because people can't afford to have kids thanks to taxes and an economy hamstrung by unions & govt interventions in business. (Cf- recent riots on France over raing retirement age from 60 (!!) to 62 (!).)
As I alluded to earlier, a major probem with the localized lifestyle is the inabiity to feed yourself should the over all system break down...but that's a problem for urbanized life in general. When the SHTF, you'll need to be albe to not only produce yur own food, but also need to be able to protect it too....If you can find any Europeans still left who survived WWII- ask them how they fed themselves. It was ugly. Check the history of Care Packages.
I live close to several former mill towns, where the large textile factory was surrounded by small mill houses for employees that could walk to work, school, go to the company store and doctor, etc.
So really, is this anything new? I think we now want more freedom and we don't want to be limited to working at a specific place or shopping at only the store within walking distance. I still want my car, I want my freedom.
I drove 1600 miles over the past few days helping out family members in two different states.
Exactly...As you point out, it's nice to have the flexibility and opportunity to move long distances when necessary or even on a whim...but as fuel becomes more scarce and expensive, we may find it beneficial to return to the older ways.
Short -sighted city planners gave us subdivisions, often actually walled off, completely separated from business, shopping and industrial districts back in the 60s when gas was 50c/gal...That allowed kids to play in the streets safely with no coal soot in the air or heavy thru- traffic ...But to run to get beer & cigarettes, you had to drive a mile or more outside the walls to buy them. No exceptions...Now that gas is $4/gal, maybe that isn't such a good trade off.
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