What would cities look like under an oil-crisis scenario?
JHK: We’ll discover that our largest industrial cities will not work very well in an energy-scarce economy. New York and Chicago pose particular problems because they are so overburdened with skyscrapers, a building type that will soon be obsolete. As a general rule, our industrial cities have assumed a scale that is just unsustainable, and I believe will see a period of painful contraction. Many of these cities are already well advanced in that process: Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, et cetera — the list is very long. Los Angeles has special problems insofar as it is composed mainly of suburban fabric. The giant suburban metroplexes will also generally enter a state of failure. Phoenix and Las Vegas will be faced by additional problems with their water supply. Both will be substantially depopulated, in my opinion. In Las Vegas, the excitement will be over. The action in America will be in the smaller towns that are embedded in a surrounding countryside where ag
