Living with energy shortfall: a future for American towns and cities

Book · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1982

OSTI ID:5867301

Van Til, J

This book represents an extension of several earlier works on spatial form by Van Til, an urban sociologist who describes himself as a guarded pessimist about the future. He examines the spatial ramifications on urban, suburban, and rural use of space brought about by changes in the availability of amount and types of energy resources. In the first three chapters, he explores these ideas by structuring the future in terms of four institutional sectors: economy (inflation, unemployment, corporate control, and distribution of wealth); culture (values, demography and life style, information revolution); polity (governance and empowerment); and voluntary action. The second part of the book explicitly considers geographic space, with a chapter devoted to describing urban, suburban, and nonmetropolitan spatial forms, and one to changes anticipated in these forms given the three future scenarios. This balanced presentation discusses both those who advocate reliance on technological development as well as those who prefer other solutions.

• OSTI ID: 5867301
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290200 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Economics & Sociology
292000* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Supply
Demand & Forecasting
ECONOMIC IMPACT
ENERGY SHORTAGES
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
POLITICAL ASPECTS
SHORTAGES
SOCIAL IMPACT
TECHNOLOGY UTILIZATION
URBAN AREAS