It worked well for a time. It built incredible middle-class wealth, and we enjoyed a bit of an American renaissance. But it was a very expensive and fragile system. When it fails, it fails completely and suddenly.

In our glee and newfound wealth, we built a well-funded, disposable society. We had the money to do a lot of really dumb things because of our industrial dominance and the desire to be modern…and so we did it all. I’m not here to cast blame — it strikes me as a very human response to a particular set of circumstances. For the last forty years, though, we’ve been gradually realizing the problems we created and are struggling with what to do now. We created something very big, debt-fueled and artificial. It’s crumbling all around us. But it’s all that we have known, so we don’t see it for what it is.

Today, the default condition on the ground is decline. If you don’t see it that often yourself, it’s probably because you’ve arranged your world to remain in the 25% of the built world that is doing just fine. Again, I’m not casting blame, as this mostly describes my own life choices too.

The point is, the era of the 50s through the early 60s was a mirage; it wasn’t “normal.” It was driven by highly unusual wealth. And the results weren't all that great anyway — just look around and see for yourself. Not only were many people excluded from the party, but the end result of the party is actually pretty lousy.

And yet we largely still hold onto these ideas and big systems that no longer work, that have failed by any reasonable measure. The public conversation still largely focuses on manufacturing jobs, on bigger highways and roads to move cars, on more single-family houses for families. We seem to think the only issues are a lack of “resources” or “political will.”