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The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream
2004 · Film · documentary · 78 min
Directed by Gregory Greene
Since World War II North Americans have invested much of their newfound wealth in suburbia. It has promised a sense of space, affordability, family life and upward mobility. As the population of suburban sprawl has exploded in the past 50 years Suburbia, and all it promises, has become the American Dream. But as we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge...
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6 comments on Hacker News
This might be a good time to mention a documentary called The End of Suburbia[1], which lays out the case for the existence of the suburbs being fueled and sustained by the easy availability of cheap oil and then goes on to forecast the death of the suburbs as cheap oil stops being so easily available.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
The tram in LA didn't die, it was murdered.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Judge Doom's Plot to Destroy Public Transit [1]
My favorite thing about this movie is that the villain's evil plot is to bring about car culture in America. Watch and giggle/shiver. Read about Pacific City Lines, National City Lines, and the Great American Streetcar Scandal if you'd like to know more about its historical parallels.
General Motors streetcar conspiracy [2]
The 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, vectors the folktale about the decline of the Pacific Electric. Scriptwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman explained: "the Red Car plot, suburb expansion, urban and political corruption really did happen. In Los Angeles, during the 1940s, car and tire companies teamed up against the Pacific Electric Railway system and bought them out of business. Where the freeway runs in Los Angeles is where the Red Car used to be." The story was told again in 1996 in Taken for a Ride and then in 2004 in the film The End of Suburbia.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OquSczOMkO4
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
There's a great documentary on this called The End of Suburbia,[1][2] though the causes for such a collapse are very different in the documentary vs this article.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Suburbia
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
A really great documentary that partially covers the history of suburbs is called "end of suburbia". Its mostly about the theory of peak oil, and how that would destroy the "american dream". Despite all those flaws it has some interesting buts about suburban development itself, and some original implementations. Specifically, a lot of transporation from city suburbs to city centers happened via light rail, versus individual cars.
Personally I dont think the suburbs are going anywhere. Im absolutely fascinated by the possibilites of electric, autonomous vehicles, and the small house movement. To me, those elements in combination might strike a reasonable balance between the desire to have ones own space, and the transportation requirements.
"The End of Suburbia is a rabidly biased documentary that takes another perspective on why the suburbs will fail, the cost of oil:"
I dislike the suburbs as much as the next wannabe new urbanist type, but a) given development patterns of the last 70 years, it's hard to see anything happening to suburbs save on the same timescale and b) hybrid and/or electric cars will replace gas-powered ones if the price of oil rises high enough. Sure, the (current) higher stick price of hybrid / electric cars means that cities will become more attractive at the margin, but given how easy the substitutes are, I think electric cars (and the infrastructure necessary to run them) are now advanced enough to ensure that oil prices alone won't damn suburbs.
The End of Suburbia is a rabidly biased documentary that takes another perspective on why the suburbs will fail, the cost of oil:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446320/
And in free as in beer, glorious 240p:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug
It's entertaining and, IMO, well worth watching even if you disagree with some of the people they interview or prefer your documentaries balanced and dispassionate. You're sure to come away from the movie feeling you know more about the history of the relationship between the automobile and the suburbs.