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.

Ridicule is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous.

In the decades to come, the successful places will tend to be the smaller traditional towns and cities with viable farming hinterlands.

Anything goes and nothing matters.

I think water transport will see a revival. However, we're not going to replay the 20th century. The industrial city of that era will not be revived. Our cities are going to contract. Many of them will contract as a whole but densify at their core.

I am far less interested in serving as a change agent than in functioning as a prose artist, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

We're not going to reform our moronic land-use laws, which mandate suburban sprawl one way or another. They're simply going to be ignored when it becomes self-evident that we cannot build stuff that way anymore.