We're still promoting stupid wasteful behavior in agribusiness - everything from ethanol production for cars to genetically modified crops. In commerce just about everything we do politically is in the service of WalMart and the systems tied to it. In transportation, we could, for instance, have compelled General Motors to produce railroad rolling stock as a condition of their bail-out, but we didn't do that. Instead, we're chasing the phantom of electric cars - and, believe me, we are going to be mortally disappointed how that works out.

I believe our techno-zealotry will be moderated by sheer circumstance. We will do what reality compels us to do, not necessarily what our fantasies propose.

I have a new theory of history, which is certain things happen because they seem like a good idea at the time. And suburbia seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was a special time and place in history, with special dynamics. And now, we're going to have to live with the consequences of that. And the consequences will be tragic.

It is true that we need a consensus to go forward with restoring passenger rail in America, and often a consensus is formed by political action, via government. That is all true. But we have no such consensus, and no one in government or politics these days has the will or the force of personality or perhaps even the understanding of the situation to get on with job of forming a consensus supporting rail.

We are in for a fiesta of default, repossession, and distress selling of suburban property, much of which will lose its presumed usefulness and monetary value in an energy-scarce economy.

Americans are suffering so much from being in unrewarding environments that it has made us very cynical. I think that American suburbia has become a powerful generator of anxiety and depression.

Most of suburbia will end up in three ways: ruins, slums, salvage yards for materials.