I'm Walkin'

I've long maintained that the most revolutionary act a person can do right now is stop driving and get rid of the car.

Atrios says that the best way to get close to nature, paradoxically, is to live in "an urban hellhole" (he's being facetious about the "hellhole" part, of course). "(T)here is a weird tendency to equate environmentalism (sic) with being near nature when in fact the enviornmentalist thing to do is LEAVE NATURE ALOOOOONE and live a modestly-sized place in an urban hellhole with decent mass transit," is his typically concise and accurate take on this matter.

What I've wanted to do for a long time, I now have to do. Some time in the next year Parkinson's Disease will render me unfit to drive. So this fall I'll move to the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle (one of the better walking neighborhoods in the country), get rid of the car, and become re-acquainted with public transit.

I'm not the least bit hesitant or sorry about this. I've lived that way before for months at a time apartment sitting for my daughter in San Francisco, and I'm happier that way. And it's the future, I'm sure. As the suburbs contract and wither under the pressure of foreclosure, pricier fuel, and the need to deal with greenhouse gases, we're looking at a population housed in denser, multi-use-zoned neighborhoods and more public transportation.

Here's a big deal: Tucson, Arizona just ordered seven streetcars from the Oregon Iron Works. Portland ordered six cars not too long ago. This is the first company to build American-made streetcars in a long, long time. They're going to make a go of it.

Thirty years from now this country is going to look so different that the young adults of today won't recognize it.