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02/16/2005: "Cheap oil and cold weather"

Those of you who know me know I spent nearly two years in Spokane, Washington. ("Spokane? It rains a lot there!", I'd hear. "No, you're thinking of Seattle. Spokane is over by Idaho." "Oh..." (silence).)

This town of about 400,000 in eastern Washington, some three hundred miles east of Seattle, has no center. No downtown. Really, just go visit sometime. (Or don't.) Everyone who can lives miles away, in Liberty Lake, Moses Lake, Mead or Cheney. Spokane's center is rotten and cancerous after fifty years of sacrifice to the Gods of easy motoring.

The downtown area is a wasteland of parking lots and hovels for the transient poor. Streets are dead zones, dangerous even when its light. Spokane has no bus transit system that normal people (i.e. the non-indigent) will actually ride.

Meanwhile, an orgy of suburban sprawl development continues out on the prairie between Moses Lake, Medical Lake, Mead and Liberty Lake. Visit any and behold this sordid smear of beige-colored tract housing, mirror-clad office boxes, and tilt-up retail pods, all in-meter speaking one message that comes through with laser-like clarity: "No Future Here." Meanwhile, Coeur dAlene is actually a walkable, livable city. Idaho and eastern Washington, separated by mere miles, are worlds apart.

The suburban America "story" has a tragic arc, and since we've squandered our national wealth on it, we are apparently determined to make ourselves feel good about it. You cannot overestimate the delusional thinking that the public will bring to this effort. It will range from credentialed intellectual figures such as Kotkin, to the lowliest Nascar morons defending their entitlements to the American Dream, the way of life that Vice-president Dick Cheney claims to be "non-negotiable."

America can tell itself whatever it wants to hear, but history and destiny have other plans for us. That plan includes a lot of trouble with the energy needed to run the beloved drive-in utopia. No amount of hope for a continuance for that way of life will bring back the depleted oil fields of Texas or the tapped-out gas wells of Oklahoma, or buy us the friendship of the people around the Persian Gulf who own two-thirds of the world's remaining oil.

Spokane has a long history of deep ties with the energy industry. The Steam Plant was owned and operated by WWP, which became Avista. Spokane's #1 cheerleader, "Jon Eliassen" of Spokane EEDC, was once the CFO of Avista:

My name is Jon E. Eliassen, and my business address is east 1411 Mission Avenue, Spokane Washington. I am employed by Avista Corporation as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Only he retired at 53. Why?

Perhaps he knows that the era of cheap oil is ending, and with it, the economies of much of the US. How long will people be able to live in Spokane when the cost of energy starts to climb?

Check out the headlines of this dying city. Or check here, where the local technology reporter goes completely *SIDEWAYS* on Vivato.