Greenbuilding.com on the Cul-de-Sac Syndrome

Kelly Hart is guest blogging today. He has been involved with green building concepts for much of his life. He has also worked in various fields of communication media, including still photography, cinematography, animation, video production and now website development. Kelly has lived in an earthbag/papercrete home that he built (but is now mostly living in Mexico) and consults about sustainable building design.

He was kind enough to review my new book The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome, the #1 book on suburbia on amazon.com. Here's what he had to say:

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream is a timely book that analyzes the origins and eventual failure of what has been known as the "American Dream." John F. Wasik, the author of this very well researched and written book is a finance columnist for Bloomberg News, so he has his finger on the pulse of American finance and folly. Published in 2009, The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome is full of insight about how the dream has become a nightmare and ways that we need to proceed so that we may sleep contentedly again.

Europeans began settling in the Americas with the dream of establishing private domains that would provide wealth and security. Thomas Jefferson popularized and manifested the "pursuit of happiness" through land ownership with establishing his grand Monticello in Virginia. He believed that all free men should have the opportunity to follow his lead and he imagined a huge grid of towns and farms extending across the continent. There would be lots of open space between individual homesteads, and each domain would be more or less autonomous.

If you fast forward to the twentieth century, you can see how Jefferson's dream became manifest in the movement of people out of cities' central districts to establish their own little Monticellos in the suburbs. Homeownership became a way of building and preserving wealth. Everybody could have, and was entitled to, his own little kingdom. The cul-de-sac syndrome was born.

Wasik outlines the history of how this simple impulse for a better life became a real estate mania, where leveraged debt became a tool for creating wealth through homeownership. The belief that real estate values only appreciate fueled a speculative frenzy that created one of the largest bubbles of overvalued commodities ever: homes. Tempted by mortgage companies with easily accessible loans, even people who obviously could not afford homes jumped on the bandwagon.

As we are so painfully aware now, the bubble suddenly burst in 2008, and the fallout from this will be felt for years. The author uses case histories of real people to demonstrate just how difficult these post-bubble times have been.

John Wasik doesn't stop the narrative with his description of how unsustainable the real estate bubble was. He discusses what is probably even more important: how unsustainable the homes themselves are in terms of design, placement within the infrastructure, and energy consumption. He shows how these factors are adding to the misery of homeowners who cannot afford to pay to heat and cool their mini mansions, nor can they afford the necessary commute to work. The cost of these energy inputs (largely from fossil fuels) is stifling both the consumer and the earth's biosphere.

In general the infrastructure that supports suburban development is not borne directly by the inhabitants or the contractors who built them; these costs are passed on to government agencies. So this is another way that such sprawl is economically unsustainable.

The cul-de-sac syndrome is negatively affecting our health, productivity, and family life. All of those hours spent driving is lost time that could have been spent walking or getting exercise, doing productive work, or having a good time with the family.

As an antidote to all of this malaise, the author outlines a variety of strategies. He describes how houses can be built to heat and cool themselves through passive solar design and how they can even produce their own electricity. Water can be conserved in many ways. And often these greener homes are healthier to live in because attention is given to possibly toxic materials.

Wasik sees green manufactured housing as a strong component of sustainable development, and he gives examples of these. He points out that factory-built homes generally waste less material, can be constructed faster, and are designed with proven efficiency.

One aspect of home building that I feel is largely neglected in this book, and in much of the "green" building trade, is any discussion of the embodied energy inherent in both conventional and manufactured housing. From an environmental standpoint this is a significant factor, in that all of the energy that goes into manufacturing industrial products for home construction, and transporting them to the site is a form of pollution. I would like to see greater recognition that natural building techniques and materials, such as adobe, rammed earth, cordwood, strawbale, and earthbag building have an important place in designing a sustainable future.

A major thrust of any movement toward a sustainable residential complex is the recognition that inner city, urban dwelling is considerably greener than living in the suburbs outside the city's core. Wasik shows that not only are people finding that they save money by being able to walk or take mass transit, but they are healthier and more productive because they are not spending that time commuting. It is a high priority for cities to examine their zoning and building codes to accommodate more dense urban and greener residential development.

So the new American Dream may take awhile to realize, but once we begin to attain it we will become more secure with a smaller carbon footprint, we will become healthier, and we will lead happier, more fulfilling lives. This new dream is less about each person having his own fiefdom and more about all of us coming together to realize a common dream of living in balance with nature on earth.

Shakespeare Rocks at APT!

Just got back from Spring Green, Wisconsin, home of American Players Theatre. The opening play was Winter's Tale, which was one of the bard's last works. The first half is a bitter tragedy and the second half something of a comedy of redemption. It's a real tough first act that never quite squares with the last act with pieces of Othello, Macbeth and Twelfth Night thrown in.

Yesterday we saw A Comedy of Errors, complete with big band music and Marx Brothers slapstick.

Don't miss it! www.playinthewoods.org!

Sierra Club’s Favorite Consumerism Book

This is a review of one of the Sierra Club’s favorite books on consumerism, courtesy of their Greenlife blog:

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream (by John Wasik, $25, Bloomberg Press, June 2009): While a large suburban home might be the stereotypical American dream, Wasik argues that it’s a destructive one and explains how moving away from urban centers in pursuit of “as much house as possible” produced not just a housing crisis, but an unsustainable way of life.

The American Dream Can Be Restored

Restoring the American Dream

This is from Helen Gallagher at http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-the-cul-de-sac/page-2/

What lies beneath the current housing crisis is the American Dream.

People happily living the cul-de-sac life may not feel the need to pick up this book, but they should. It has value for all of us. With The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome, we gain a better understanding of the American housing crisis as author John F. Wasik takes a thoughtful look at the tradeoffs in the American way of life.

Far from the days of the “real estate is the best investment” mentality we learned from our parents, today we’re faced with collateral damage from a boom gone bust. Investment brokerages went broke. The U.S. government seized Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, deeming them too big to fail. The troubled assets relief program, TARP, propped up the nation’s financial system in desperation, while job losses, store closings, and foreclosures grew across America.

Fully explaining the cause and effect of this spiral, Wasik, a finance columnist for Bloomburg News, shares frightening statistics to back up his thesis on how and why this cyclone of circumstances occurred.

Much has to do with housing, and the sprawling urban areas Wasik dubs “spurbs.” In The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome, he explores a combination of many financial and cultural ailments that led us to a dead-end in private American housing, from planning and city development to business and history.

“The craving for upward mobility through home ownership escalated even as families on the verge of ‘making it’ were falling behind economically,” says Wasik. As their finances eroded, and people lost access to health insurance, we now have more than three million homes in danger of facing foreclosure in 2009.

During the boom years, people pulled money out of their homes for spending, lifestyle upgrades, college and vacations, nearly $600 billion in 2004 and 2005 alone, he says. Americans who never lived through a major downturn didn’t think they needed to save. They continued to reduce the value of their homes through mounting debt; unaware the market could, and would, turn sharply.

In time, upgrading lifestyles led to the McMansion scene across America, where “bigger and better” never seemed to stop. “Why go to a bank to see a grandiose marble floor when it could be in your very own bathroom or grand entrance,” says Wasik.

One of the most interesting sections of The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome is the “Origins of a Dream” chapter, providing valuable reading for anyone looking at the foundation of American life, starting with Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a country of farms and towns connected by commerce.

There is a fascinating snapshot of American history here, and Wasik’s research goes back to Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase land grab to capture control of the Mississippi Basin for America, not for France.

As the country grew, planned communities sprung up, such as those in New Jersey and Illinois in the mid-1800s. Wasik uses Chicago to illustrate the move to suburbs as cities grew and became taller with the advance of steel-making. Suburban expansion was the answer, providing affordable housing and an escape from the overcrowded city in early 1880s.

As growth forged ahead, homes became more elaborate and expensive. By 2006 an average of 37 percent of monthly income went to housing expenses. The realities of “house lust” meant people were no longer keeping up with their parents’ lifestyles, and no longer able to stop the debt spiral.

Wasik explores options for restoring the concept of home and community with a solid foundation. As he works his way through to the answer, “Build Smart,” we are enlightened and encouraged to recognize the importance of personal values as we attempt to come back from the brink. Jefferson’s ideas of sufficiency were lost somewhere along the way, but that doesn’t mean we can’t turn back. Maybe we can go home again.

The way out is complex but Wasik argues it begins by unlocking property taxes from school funding and local development, by prioritizing transportation funding, updating building codes for the 21st century and opening the way for green jobs and private incentives for affordable housing.

Before you think the housing problems in American won’t reach you, or haven’t yet, check the author’s “Watch List” of troubled towns and bright spots on the landscape. It may surprise you. Either way, The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome will enlighten you.

Climate Change Begins At Home

In my latest book "The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome," I make the argument that how we design and operate homes and communities will make a significant impact on climate change, energy use, affordability and well being.

A piece of my argument rests on the technical reality that homes can become more energy stingy while producing electricity. Most of the technology is already here to do that. The leading edge of building technology research is being done at places like Oak Ridge National Lab near Knoxville, Tennessee, which was built during the Manhattan project to create nuclear bomb materials. I met scientists like Jeff Christian, who is using the lab's resources for peaceful purposes such as making homes energy wise.

Here's a piece from Oak Ridge's magazine on Jeff's work:

Becoming Part of the Process

PROBLEM: Can we reduce power consumption without compromising our quality of life? Home automation systems help consumers tailor their daily habits and energy consumption to match their needs and budgets.


When ORNL scientist Jeff Christian declared in 2004 that houses could be designed to produce enough energy to pay for the power they consume, he had a lot of people shaking their heads in disbelief. Now that a growing number of zero-energy houses has sprung up in and around Oak Ridge, the same people are nodding their heads—this time in agreement.

The growing acceptance of zero-energy housing has inspired Christian to extend to the broader market the reach of both zero-energy homes and the technologies that enable these super-efficient houses.

A combination of new technologies, new habits and new policies will be required to make Christian's vision a reality. Consumers will need to be convinced to pay greater attention to their electricity consumption. Likewise, a commitment will be necessary from utilities to making smart grid capabilities available to consumers.

On the technology front, one of the most promising tools for reigning in out-of-control miscellaneous electrical use in homes is the home automation system. Many homeowners are surprised to learn that zero-energy houses are not solely dependent upon solar panels, high-tech gadgets and cutting-edge building techniques. The success of low-energy homes is made possible when people understand how and why they use energy. Researchers have found that the power required to heat, cool and provide hot water for most households accounts for only about one-half of energy consumption. The remaining 50 percent is used for a host of smaller activities, such as washing clothes, watching television and lighting rooms. Both halves of the energy equation can get a significant efficiency boost from the use of relatively simple home automation systems.

Increasingly common, these systems provide a communication link between the household electrical system and the utility grid. Through this link, consumers have access to a detailed and real-time breakdown of how much electricity they are using for specific appliances at specific times. Equipped for the first time with this information, consumers can begin to tailor their daily habits, and their energy consumption, to both their needs and their budgets.

ORNL researchers are working on the next generation of household appliances, which will include the capability to receive pricing information from the grid, as well as alerts about when electrical demand is expected to be particularly high or low. Christian's team is partnering with General Electric, Whirlpool, and the Tennessee Valley Authority to install this new capability into their test houses—Habitat for Humanity homes occupied by families—with the eventual goal of showcasing the technologies in larger, high-performance homes.

"Consumer behavior has a major effect on power consumption," Christian says. "Utilities understand that, so they are making a substantial investment to install 'smart' meters in residential areas to enable automation systems to communicate with the utility."

One of the key drivers behind the move to smart meters is the adoption by many utilities of time-of-day pricing for electricity—that is, charging more for power during peak use hours and less during hours when the demand is low. "For example," Christian says, "in California the nighttime rate might be five cents per kilowatt hour, but in the late afternoon when it's really hot and people are demanding a lot of air conditioning, the peak rate might be as much as a dollar per kilowatt hour."

On the most basic level, home automation systems can save energy by using sensors to determine when people are present and then turning lights and televisions off when no one is in the room. With the latest technologies, consumers can go a step further and allow the utility company to control the power consumption of their major appliances.

"For example," Christian says, "with a home automation system, families can shut down their hot water heater for an hour or two during parts of the day when it's normally not being used. Consumers might choose to let the utility choose these times or choose the times themselves. Similar technologies could also enable consumers to set their dishwasher or washing machine to start operating when electricity is cheapest. For instance, the dishwasher could be loaded after supper but be instructed not to start operating until 10:00 at night, when energy rates are lower—or the consumer might instead let the utility determine the most economical time to start.

"Giving the smart grid control of certain appliance functions has essentially zero impact on homeowners. The new technologies literally do not require them to do anything," Christian says. "However, people who want to adjust their behavior and control the appliances themselves can take even greater advantage of this system."

Christian points out that widespread use of new grid technologies would dramatically decrease the peak demand for power. This new aspect of energy conservation is an attractive alternative to building new power plants to support ever-increasing peak power demands. Confronted with the financial and political costs of building additional power plants, Christian says utilities are faced with the policy decision of whether it is better to take advantage of emerging smart grid technology than it is to add additional capacity to the grid. "If we can get a lot of people to participate, the potential for saving energy and saving money is huge."

When Christian says "lots of people," he means lots of people. The demonstration project he is currently pitching to utility companies around the country would involve equipping 200,000 homes with "smart" meters. Ideally, these would be zero-energy homes in order to have the greatest long-term impact on power consumption. "It really comes down to the electric utilities enabling consumers to take advantage of this technology," he says. "We can talk all day about fancy controls and fancy appliances, but the infrastructure has to be there first."

For example," Christian says, "in California, the utilities are making the investment to install thousands of meters every day." Building codes that recognize the benefits of this technology are being adopted, as well. "In Boulder, Colorado, the codes are graduated," he says. "If you want to build a house that is 5000 square feet or larger, then it must be a zero-energy house. If the new house is 4000 square feet, it must be a very efficient house, and so on. Even the smallest houses need to meet Energy Star standards that are established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy."

"I'm also encouraged by the government's plans to invest in upgrading the country's electric power infrastructure using smart grid technology," Christian says. "I hope the result has an impact on our lifestyle as big as the construction of the Interstate Highway System 50 years ago.

"Christian acknowledges that the impact of any technology depends ultimately on whether consumers embrace it. "The issues of foreign oil dependence and climate change all come down to choices that individuals make," Christian says. "Zero-energy homes, smart grid technology, and home automation systems can enable consumers to reduce their energy expenditures without impacting their comfort or their lifestyles. This particular technology enables the customer to be part of the solution, rather than just complaining about the shortcomings of conventional power plants. Until recently, all we could do was buy or not buy power. In the world of tomorrow, we will become part of the process."


How can we help scientists like Christian incorporate this technology into every home? Call your congressional representative and tell them that you want to see more green building incentives built into the final climate change/energy bills. Tell your local utility that you need ways to cut your power usage such as smart meters, automation devices and agreements to buy back power you generate at favorable rates like they do in Germany.

Remember that climate change is something that hits home. Quite literally.

A Song for Our Times

Right at the height of the market/credit crunch I wrote this song entitled "Bail Me Out Baby." While I don't think I'm going to give The Boss a run for his money any time soon, it was a comment on avarice and it's after-effects.

This is a video that was shot of me performing the song at neighbor Chris Mallon's home along with some other (much more talented) singer-songwriters at an event called a SongPull. Scroll down to see yours truly and tell me what you think. Concentrate on the lyrics and not my Dylanesque performance.

http://lineoutlive.com/songpull/vault.php

Vote for Green Jobs

Some pending legislation would help create green jobs. This is from my local Sierra Club chapter:

Stop Climate Change With Green Jobs



Action: Contact your member of Congress

Message: Improve and Pass HR 2454

When: Congress will vote on Friday, June 26.

Why: The future of life as we know it on Planet Earth is threatened.

How:

I. Use the Club’s on-line alert:
Paste this into your browser:
https://secure2.convio.net/sierra/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2459

Or click this Link.



II. Telephone:

Those in the US 10 district (SE half of Lake and NE Cook), please call US Rep. Mark Kirk's office, thank him for HR 55, the COMMUTER Act, and then ask that he vote for HR 2454. Call 847-940-0202, or 202-225-4835.

Those in the US 8 district (NW half of Lake and NW Cook), please call US Rep. Melissa Bean's office, thank her for reintroducing her 3 Green Innovation Initiative bills, and then ask that she vote for HR 2454. Call 847-519-3434 or 202-225-3711.


Strengthen and pass HR 2454, the bill for Green Jobs and Clean Energy ;
Require more energy efficiency and renewable energy sooner;

Retain EPA’s authority to make sure the necessary emissions reductions are achieved in time;

Invest in green jobs, not more giveaways to Big Coal, Big Oil, New Nukes, and other polluters.

Background:

The U.S. needs comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation to jumpstart our economy, create millions of new, good-paying clean energy jobs, make us more energy independent, and put us on the path to slashing global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. Thanks to the effective leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the support of committee members from every region and economic interest of the country, we have a bill that sets us on this path. We need to achieve these goals by supporting and strengthening American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454).

As this bill is considered on the floor, we must strengthen it in three key ways: improve the renewable energy and energy efficiency provisions; allow the EPA to act as crucial backstop to make sure the necessary emissions reductions are achieved in time; and shift investments toward protecting consumers and the public interest, rather than more giveaways and bailouts for Big Oil, Big Coal, and other polluters. We must also defeat any amendments that weaken the bill, particularly those that undermine the legislation's clean energy incentives and emission reduction goals.

By voting to strengthen and pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the House will create vital momentum for action this year by Congress, and enable the President to show leadership in the international community. As we approach the December 2009 deadline for climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, we must show the world the U.S. is finally ready to take action toward solving this urgent global problem. Be part of this solution!

The effects of Climate Change are already evident around the world, and the emissions we release are causing it to accelerate. The hottest years on record are within this decade, and are resulting in more violent weather, dropping levels of fresh water lakes, melting of glaciers and sea ice, sea level rise, and many other unwanted effects. The resulting shift in climate zones toward the poles and to higher elevations is disrupting the life cycles of plants and animals that depend on one another for migration and pollination, and as a result, we are presently witnessing the sixth great extinction. With the stability of global ecosystems threatened, our energy use habits are gambling with the diversity of life on Earth. We cannot sit this out and hope to win a future victory. This time we’re all in.

Also see my new book "The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome." www.culdesacsyndrome.com