580K views · Oct 27, 2006 · 51:44 · 3 HN recommenders · 7 mentions · discussed 2011–2021
A 52-minute short version of the documentary The End of Suburbia, about peak oil and the end of cheap energy. It argues that American suburbs depend on cheap oil and may become the slums of the future.
Why Hacker News points people here: Recommended in threads on suburbs, energy and urbanism as an entertaining, if biased, case for suburbia's dependence on cheap oil.
“It's entertaining and, IMO, well worth watching even if you disagree with some of the people they interview”HN comment, 2011
“See this great documentary, "The End of Suburbia”
Documentary on unsustainable suburban economies and peak oil.
Jobs would necessarily have to be much closer to home. The onset of global warming and the oil peak are starting to prove that building economies around suburbs, highways, and long commutes is unsustainable anyway. See this great documentary, "The End of Suburbia": this video
“It's entertaining and, IMO, well worth watching even if you disagree with some of the people they interview”
Biased but entertaining history of cars and suburbs.
The End of Suburbia is a rabidly biased documentary that takes another perspective on why the suburbs will fail, the cost of oil: link And in free as in beer, glorious 240p: this video It's entertaining and, IMO, well worth watching even if you disagree with some of the people they interview or prefer your documentaries balanced and dispassionate. You're sure to come away from the movie feeling you know more about the history of the relationship between the automobile and the suburbs.
“I don't recommend the movie because it's right”
Asks interesting questions about energy and electricity capacity.
There's actually a section in the movie on the subject of electricity: this video And later on they discuss hybrids and electric cars specifically. But to be clear, I don't recommend the movie because it's right , but because it asks interesting questions and leads you to think about interesting possibilities. We use a lot of energy. If we're going to replace the energy from fossil fuels with energy from electricity, we are going to need a lot more capacity than we have today. And as you can see from recent news, doubling or trebling our capacity is no small feat.
“You might be interested in watching "The End of Suburbia”
Shows what high oil prices could do to society.
"It's hard to believe that people would panic if the oil price went high, or even sky high. It wouldn't be pretty, sure, probably several industry sectors would die, but I don't see how it would end our world." You might be interested in watching "The End of Suburbia" : this video
“There's a great documentary on this called The End of Suburbia”
Documentary on suburban collapse.
There's a great documentary on this called The End of Suburbia ,[1][2] though the causes for such a collapse are very different in the documentary vs this article. [1] - link [2] - this video
“lays out the case for the existence of the suburbs being fueled and sustained by the easy availability of cheap oil”
Lays out how cheap oil sustained suburbs and forecasts their decline.
This might be a good time to mention a documentary called The End of Suburbia [1], which lays out the case for the existence of the suburbs being fueled and sustained by the easy availability of cheap oil and then goes on to forecast the death of the suburbs as cheap oil stops being so easily available. [1] - this video
“The documentary "The End of Suburbia" talked about this possibility”
Discusses building workspaces closer to home.
Another option is transforming our communities to build workspaces closer to where people live instead of requiring long commutes to get to work. The documentary "The End of Suburbia" talked about this possibility: this video
