Re: Just some comments

Aidan,

Nice to meet you. I feel your pain. I grew up in the
Central Valley of California and know exactly what you
are talking about. It's what James Howard Kunstler
calls the "Clusterfuck Nation." If you don't know his
website and books get to know him, he is a real
visionary on this stuff.
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary14.html

He also keeps the amusing, "Eyesore of the Month"
http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore.html

Many of us on this list are giving is a go of living
in places where one can be car-free. In my case it is
Oakland, CA where my work is just a bike ride away and
shops are walking distance through neighborhoods built
to serve trolly lines, not cars.

Enjoy New Zealand, then come back here and join the
fight for livable cities in the USA. First step, join
http://www.carfreecity.us/home.html so we don't lose
track of you. 

Cheers,

- brian smith

--- Aidan Curran <acurran-/[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi,
> I came accross this group and the car free city
> website when I was 
> serching the web trying to find out if there are any
> progressive 
> communities in the US that are attempting to get
> away from the ugly 
> car culture based sprawl that has made this country
> a horrible place 
> to live.
> 
> I am currently living in a faceless bedroom
> community in California 
> called Cameron Park. The good thing about it is that
> it is such a 
> crap place that it is encouraging me to start
> planning my escape from 
> the US again. (I tried moving to Panama for a few
> months but my wife 
> who was pregnant knew she wasn't going to be able to
> settle there so 
> we came back temporarily to California to have the
> baby and plan our 
> next move - to New Zealand). All of California that
> I have seen and 
> in fact all of the US that I have seen is totally
> destroyed and has 
> become a horrible place to live for those of us who
> yearn for a 
> simpler more sane life. Cameron Park with a
> population of 15,000 and 
> neighbouring El Dorado Hills with a population of
> 25,000 are typical 
> of the shit places that call themselves cities these
> days - neither 
> have a downtown area, just various strip malls here
> and there and 
> mile after mile of ugly apartment complexes and
> monster houses served 
> by mega-SUV friendly oversized roads. In the month
> or 2 since I've 
> been here I continuously ask myself What the hell is
> wrong with the 
> people that buy into and accept this kind of shit?
> Up the road from 
> Cameron Park is Placerville which being an older
> community still has 
> the remenants of a once nice little town but it too
> has been ruined 
> by our modern development ways - highway 50 splits
> it in two and it 
> is surrounded by ugly sprawl.
> 
> A car free city is an extreme jump from what we have
> now, I'd love to 
> see it happen and I would like to live there but I'm
> thinking maybe 
> some baby steps need to be taken first, like a
> pedestrian friendly, 
> low car traffic town or district within a city.
> 
> Good luck with your endevours.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 





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