Letters to the Editor
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The trend is downward
Kunstler at his best is perceptive, convincing, and highly entertaining. At his best, he wrote Home From Nowhere, which broke New Urbanism out of its cult status among planners and helped bring its ideas into the mainstream. He has sounded the alarm passionately about the end of cheap oil, the transportation crisis on this continent, the crying need for cities and buildings that people care about. Unfortunately, Kunstler is not consistent, and at his worst he is a curmudgeonly, arbitrary doomsayer. At his worst he ruins his own credibility by overstating his case and revealing how deeply he despises the culture that he wishes to influence.
It's been a while since I've read any of Kunstler at his best. He seldom helps me understand how the world works any more. Time to move on to more articulate voices.