It's a curious argument to make in a virtual community. It's curious, too, because exurbia came about as an impulse to regain the American dream town, fleeing from cities, which conversely may have retained the only sense left of community or even ecological stability that we have. Then, too, a community requires a workplace, there are few lives centered around family farms, and the factory towns that temporarily stabilized communities before the move to cities and then back to the burbs were not exactly models of human freedom or environmental health. Can it be a coincidence that McKibben's advocacy comes from one of the few Americans able to sustain a comfortable lifestyle from merely writing? 

Kwame Anthony Appiah has written of seeking a rootedness in cosmopolitanism as well as in local, ethnic, or national identity. Bush's go it alone stance and Lou Dobbs's immigrant bashing remind me of what goes wrong when we fail to try for that. It may be the only hope we have.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

While I really do appreciate your suggestions for increasing community - something I think that most people do long for - I can't help but wonder if there's a deeper, more ominous process at work that has led to our concurrent and seemingly contradictory desire for more isolation. The contradiction could conceivably be a result of too much social density, leading to a behavioral sink, as population levels increase beyond what we as human beings are built to tolerate. We are social animals, but as communities grow more crowded we also need to reduce unwanted social interactions. Of course, this is a phenomena that hits residents of lower-income communities harder than middle- or upper-class ones, but it's something we - the overall society - ignore at our own peril.

Lest this sound far too pessimistic, there probably are ways that could be developed (other than separate master suites), to allow us to have more control over our social environment, and thus to be able to enjoy the benefits of community at the same time. But without considering the ways in which the goals of sustainability and community are undercut by a constantly expanding population, we won't develop them.

The ideas you present do sound interesting, and I intend to look into your book, Deep Economy.

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

How meaningful is a conversation with a vendor at a farmer's market? I mean, sure, it's sometimes interesting to learn where an heirloom fruit comes from and sometimes you pick up a recipe or two but there's nothing that deep about these interactions.

That's just an example. As I head into the city now I'll have numerous opportunities to talk to people on the subway and on the streets but I mostly hope they won't interrupt my reading and I think most of them feel the same way.

Maybe this comes from living in a high density city, but there's a lot of things that I do that I don't think need a more robust social component, which might even be annoying.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

...[A]s communities grow more crowded we also need to reduce unwanted social interactions.

On this note, taking public transportation in Boston is a vastly different experience from taking public transportation in Salt Lake City.  Although I grew up in SLC, I've spent the last several years in the Boston area.  In Salt Lake, people take TRAX and talk to strangers.  It's seen as friendly.  In Boston, talking to people on the T is an intrusion, because a subway ride is alone time.

(By the way, I think this is one of the key elements in the east coast - west coast divide.  Because there is a substantial cultural difference.)

I think the local foods movement is only at the tip of the iceberg right now. In a few more years, as people become more aware of the environmental impact of globalization's logical conclusion (everything, with the exception of service industries, now seems to be globalized), oil becomes more scarce, and international tensions run rampant, I foresee a new back-to-the-land movement or at least some decentralization of population.

The exurbs are only the start; they may have been built ostensibly for community, but they foster only isolation. People are really seeking security and community, and a whole generation of college students has now been forced to internalize Putnam.

One advantage of a new ruralism is that it doesn't require the reinvention of the economy - rural land is still relatively inexpensive and it is possible to build communities from the ground up. I'm certainly not predicting that all of society will decentralize, but I do think my generation could spark a homesteading movement on par with what happened in the 1970s.

As I head into the city now I'll have numerous opportunities to talk to people on the subway and on the streets but I mostly hope they won't interrupt my reading and I think most of them feel the same way. -- destor.
--

How do you so much about what these people are thinking, given that you have never talked to them ?

I think you're being a tad literal, friend.

Obviously, I talk to people. I just don't buy that people are wandering around our society, desperate to connect with strangers. I just don't think people are like that.

Which is not to say that people don't meet each other in all kinds of ways. I just don't by that there's some sort of crisis of community going on.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Bill McKibben: Because your post got me thinking about the relationship of culture and the built environment, I'd like to post two links that you and others interested in the topic might enjoy.

The first is a link to the Amazon blurb about a book, House Form and Culture, by Amos Rapoport, who, until his recent retirement, was a Professor of Architecture at a variety of universities in the U.S. and around the world. I think it is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read, and is well worth exploring, imho, for anyone interested in the idea of building (in the physical sense, now) sustainable communities.

The other is a link to a project that for several decades has been under construction in the Arizona desert. The idea for the development is fairly utopian, but it's based on some of the same ecological ideas you're talking about. It's called Arcosanti, and is the brainchild of a visionary architect, Paolo Soleri. 

An arcology [Note: "arcology" is the term Soleri coined to represent the fusion of architecture and ecology] would need about two percent as much land as a typical city of similar population. Today’s typical city devotes more than sixty percent of its land to roads and automobile services. Arcology eliminates the automobile from within the city. The multi-use nature of arcology design would put living, working and public spaces within easy reach of each other and walking would be the main form of transportation within the city.

An arcology’s direct proximity to uninhabited wilderness would provide the city dweller with constant immediate and low-impact access to rural space as well as allowing agriculture to be situated near the city, maximizing the logistical efficiency of food distribution systems. Arcology would use passive solar architectural techniques such as the apse effect, greenhouse architecture and garment architecture to reduce the energy usage of the city, especially in terms of heating, lighting and cooling. Overall, arcology seeks to embody a “Lean Alternative” to hyper consumption and wastefulness through more frugal, efficient and intelligent city design.

(The main flaw I see in Soleri's work is that it is top-down design, flowing not from the culture, but from the ideas of one man.) 

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

Just as a matter of curiosity (I am not sure if this is really on topic), are the foreign-designed windmills engineered for American winds? I ask, because German-designed dirigibles tended to crack up in American storms. The Shenandoah was a famous example. When some Scottish friends came to visit us, they were astonished at the immense size of the pylons we use to support advertising billboards. I assume we do that to compensate for the difference in our weather.

Yes I think Mike7Woodson has illuminated the obvious - perhaps what is needed is a new spirituality. Church goers have their community at church. In fact that was the arguing point my neighbor gave me when he attempted to rope me into his fundamentalist Christian church, when he asked me "what do you do for fellowship?"

Of course in part my idea of fellowship is to get to know my neighbors. Since I'm not in this one neighbor's Christian club, we don't spend much time together other than occasional chit chat in the middle of the street. Jesus himself expounded on the "love thy neighbor" bit but you don't see a whole lot of it. I think the reason is privacy, and avoiding demands such as favors that neighbors ask when you know them well. People are tuckered out from work at the end of the day and want to balance their connectivity to people during their working day with isolation after hours. I can't blame them and I often feel the same way.

But on weekends - there are a lot of us who don't attend church, synagogue, or mosque. And we should find a substitute. Being active in the Sierra Club could be one satisfying substitute, blending environmental activist activities with recreational outings and excercise. For others, perhaps there is a hidden need that they'd be happier if they found a spiritual organization that they agree with - something like religious science or unitarian universalist, if the major religions who believe all other religions are wrong don't suit their intellect.

If you have young children you can meet this need by being active in their scout troop. Service organizations such as Rotary, Lions, Masons, etc. have been around a very long time and they provide community service opportunities. Although it seems some of them at least are elitist and it may not be so easy to "join."

When we hear day in and day out in the news about child abductors/molesters/killers it isn't surprising that parents want to isolate their children from adults. Particularly when the majority of child molestation takes place by people the family knows. And hearing day in and day out about religious leaders molesting children would prompt any right minded parent to avoid religion.

For sure, if you are a member of the upper class, you have your own set of rules and your own geography in upper class and this will naturally isolate you from the middle and lower class. Same for middle class isolating from lower and upper, and same for lower isolating from middle and uppper.

One of the major reasons people get a job is to be plugged into the community. The rewards of having a job aren't only the paycheck.

Those who are self employed and work at home with say an internet business where all they do is email and do some telephone contact are the most isolated. But again they can choose to balance this by getting involved in the community after hours or on weekends. Whereas some people may feel they have had all the contact with human beings they can handle and then some during their work day, and need to balance by meditating all weekend in the forest, where they need isolation to balance out their heavy contact with the public at their job.

Obviously if you have a very large property - estate - and house, not only are your neighbors farther away, but you have more valuable possessions in your house which you do not trust others to be around - you have more to lose. Whereas "blessed are the poor" - we can see where those who live closer to their neighbors might be happier, depending on their neighbors that is, due to the closer proximity.

So I'm not sure wealth is the only explanation for isolation, but I can buy into wealth being one factor. And I doubt that everyone who is wealthy is isolated either - they may be isolated from us middle class citizens but that is by theiir choice. Nor do I think people living in suburban sprawl are all isolated. And, some people in the close proximity urban living areas are the ones who get the double dead bolts on their door, and perhaps bullet proof windows, as they might have more to fear.

I'd like to see more people turning to some sort of spirituality/philosophical organization that doesn't think it is the only gospel truth, where all other belief systems are wrong, as I am guessing that this could be the way people could learn about simplicity and out of the box ideas for adding some community into their lives. I postulate that "empty pew syndrome" is one of the factors of unhappiness. And that we need to find an alternative spirituality/philosophy practice that can focus us on simplicity and community. An alternative place to regain our ethics and values.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/4577392.stm -- This research out of Sweden regarding what makes people happy is on target I believe (although I havn't read your book so I don't know what other research is out there regarding happiness.) Winning the lottery and achieving goals only produce a temporary high. Ongoing happiness comes primarily from the work itself, when you are working to achieve goals (as long as the work suits your strengths,) and secondarily from having good relationships. It's the achieving, not the achievements, that produce happiness.

We don't know from our discussion how many of the unhappy people in question realize this point that the Swedish research has found. So I don't think we can make a leap and just say that our wealth is the culprit. While you are correct according to this research that good relationships are one of the two largest factors in happiness, I think it is possible to be wealthy and to have good relationships.

I would not be surprised if most Americans simply do not know that they would be happier if they were more involved in the community and also if they found work that was worth working hard for and that suited their strengths rather than maximized a paycheck. Your ideas for regressing to ecocommunities and local economies would help probably to improve the good relationships factor for those multitudes who are not aware of or forgot about these simple truths, I would agree with that.

Wealth and possessions can be viewed as achievements. The Swedish research then could also show why possessions don't produce happiness. But if you were to use your possessions to further your goals, they could help to produce happiness indirectly. An example might be someone who gets disallusioned from the corporate box of being stuck in a cubicle 50 weeks out of the year, and quits his/her job to turn his/her McMansion into a child care center. If working with small children suits this person's strengths better than the inside the box job at the corporation, this person will be happier while they are working hard to achieve the goal of creating and running the child care center.

In sum, I think the unhappiness issue would have more to do with philosophy than economics.

Read the most recent works on primatology as an excellent starting point for the evolutionary basis for socialization and morality.

To greatly simplify things, we evolved to be social creatures because social creatures receive tremendous efficiency gains by cooperating. The most rudimentary examples of that are pack-predators analogous to the ideology called "Social Darwinism" (terrible misnomer) though Darwin wholly disapproved of it. Nazis and fascists generally are fond of the pack-predatory paradigm, and the executives of ENRON were big on Social Darwinism and encouraged a ruthless ideology, with predictably self destructive results.

Somehow, societies based on cannibalism and destruction never manage to thrive.

Higher primates like chimps, bonobos, and humans, nurture their young for long periods of time, create technologies which require a far higher degree of cooperation requiring far more complex rules necessitating morality and empathy, and are far more intelligent to go with that.

Dogs have their way: a rigid hierarchical system of dominance hardwired into their brains to reinforce the system of pack-predatory behaviors, and not much intelligence, nor language, nor art, nor morality, as it's not needed. Domesticated dogs become more empathetic and socialized to follow human rules, but wild dogs live by the rule of "kill or be killed."

Humans and higher primates have our way: morality and empathy hardwired in the brain to facilitate and steer social interactions towards mutually beneficial results, and a great deal more intelligence to go with that, which obviously has tremendous value from a evolutionary fitness standpoint. humans still war and conquer, but generally embrace the beliefs for the common good and the golden rule.

Sociopaths, carnivores, nihilists, and generally people lacking morality and empathy have always been considered monsters and practically sub-human. Generally speaking in an evolutionary context, they are "sub-human." People who either lack the nature or nurture impetuous for empathy and morality, are "sub-human" and maybe even "sub-chimp" in behavior i.e. lacking the traits essential for evolution beyond relatively dumb pack-predatory animals.

It's also true that some recent cultural movements are somewhat devolutionary.

Rampant materialism and physical and cultural isolation or "hyper-individualism" tends to wither people's sense of community, empathy, morality, and values. I'm always sympathetic to the real pain felt by social conservatives in suburbs and rural areas. While I don't agree with much of their proposed solutions, which tend to rely on wistful reflections on bygone eras, they are experiencing real pain. However, I think the problem is inherently a modern one, and traditional solutions often lack the tools to fix many of the problems.

For example, while issues of community are timeless, the problems of many suburban communities are completely modern. They're just built wrong, geographically hostile to community health, mind and body. The mall, a temple to materialism and physical sloth, inevitably becomes the social hub, and it's very difficult to make anything good come of a mall. Putting a church in a mall next to the Orange Julius won't fix things. Nor will things be fixed from building highly impersonal mega-churches the size of malls, that have more in common with a stadium sport than a local community center.

But again, these are all huge scale issues with deep roots, and not the place to begin.

The place to start is with economic expansion in a more positive direction, while creating jobs in industries that build a better future.

Though of course I'd prefer them to be American companies for national pride. Unfortunately, the outright short-sightedness, hostility to environmentalism, and the influence of fossil fuel lobbies in America has put us behind the curve. Hopefully people are now wising up and realizing the tremendous opportunity we've been missing under our upturned noses.
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You need to broaden your research. GE is a major player in wind turbine manufacture

http://www.gepower.com/businesses/ge_wind_energy/en/index.htm

Actually, GE bought this business from ENRON a few years ago - influence of the fossil-fuel lobby you know.

This list shows that the business is spread world-wide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_turbine_manufacturers

Re: I'm no historian, but I think it's safe to guess that most food in the Roman Empire was produced locally except during famine conditions.

You would be right about meats and common vegetables and fruits, but very wrong about Rome's grain supply. It was brought, on an almost daily basis, from fields far removed from the city itself. Along the way a great many luxuries for the rich were shipped in as well.
Again, restricting one's food supply to what's available locally is a recipe for disaster. And as far as "backing up the tape" the poster who suggested this has not done so at all. Almost all the world's major famines occured long before there were chemical fertilizers, mechanized transport and the like. Famine in the 20th century was a creature of political failure (including war). In past eras it was the child of adverse growing conditions, crop pests, etc. We should not belittle our achievment in all but banishing such a scourge, and should cease romanticizing a past we would absolutely be horrified by were we magically transported there.

Re: Although population densities were higher, overall population in ancient cities was miniscule compared that of today's mega-cities; generally ancient cities ranged from about 15,000 to only 25,000 total population.

Well, that depends on the definition of "city". However certainly there were some mega-cities in antiquity, and most of the places whose namse we remember today (Babylon, Rome, Memphis, Byzantium, Alexandria, Antioch, etc.) had populations of 100,000 or more. Rome, counting its suburbs (yes the ancients had them too), had somewhere around a million. Byzantium probably approached that number too, until the demographic collapse of the 600s left it with far fewer people. And in any event, absolute numbers do not much matter when we are talking population densities and the psychological and health effects they have on people.
Finally, if you want to tell me that modern suburbs (and often cities too) are badly designed, you'll get nothing but agreement. Likewise, if you tell me that we need to develop alternative energies and get away from fossil fuels. But if you tell me we should live like medieval serfs, thank-you but no.

One also runs into friends and acquaintences at the Farmers' Market. Sometimes people one hasn't seen in awhile. That aspect is very nice. Also strolling in the sun.

“… [i]t is my observation that on average and over time, the new solutions slightly outweigh the new problems. As Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi once said, "There is more good than evil in the world—but not by much." Unexpectedly "not much" is all that is needed when you have the power of compound interest at work—which is what culture is. The world needs to be only 1% (or even one-tenth of 1 %) better day in and day out to accumulate civilization. As long as we create 1% more than we destroy each year, we have progress. This delta is so small that it is almost imperceptible, particularly in the face of the 49% of death and destruction that is in our face. Yet this tiny, slim, and shy differential generates progress.

But is there really even 1% betterment? I think the only evidence we have of this is people's behavior. When we watch what people do, we see they inevitably, unwaveringly head towards more choices, more options, and the increased possibilities offered by the future…

Moving back into the past has never been easier. Citizens in developing countries can merely walk back to their villages, where they can live with age-old traditions, and limited choices. If they are eager enough, they can live without modern technology at all. Citizens in the developed world can buy a plane ticket and in less than one day can be settled in a hamlet in Nepal or Mali. If you care to relinquish the options of the present and adopt the limited choices of the past you can live there the rest of your life. Indeed you can choose your time period. If you believe the peak of existence was reached in Neolithic times you can camp out in a clearing in the Amazon; if you suspect the golden age was in the 1890s, you can find a farm among the Amish. We have the incredible opportunity to head into the past, but it is amazing how few people really want to live there. Except for a few rare individuals, no one does. Rather, everywhere in the world, at all historical periods, in all cultures, people have stampeded by the billions into the future of "of slightly more options" as fast as they can.”
-KEVIN KELLY

The implication of Mr. McKibben’s post is that government should step in to create “community” even if it comes at the expense of growth. That is all good and well for him, but personally I think he overstates the “bowling alone” phenomenon. Even if we assume that retarding economic growth would allow Mr. McKibben to live a happier life, why should his choice be forced upon me? Anyone who wants to buy from a farmer’s market is free to do so now, I prefer paying less at Wal-Mart.

Re:: If they are eager enough, they can live without modern technology at all.

What you are proposing is starvation and pestilence on a scale that beggars description.
Would you people please come to your senses? Frankly I could almost stomach Bush and the Neocons more easily than the profound anti-humanist bias I find when radical environmentalists start figuring out ways to "cure" the homo sapiens "problem".

Many thanks to all for excellent thoughts--I especially liked the list of books. May I add to the list: anything at all by Wendell Berry. Deep Economy is dedicated to, and owes much to, his example.

I hope people actually get a chance to read the book (if not from your local bookstore than from that community institution par excellence the public library) so they can see that I attempt to grapple with most of the points raised here. In particular, the idea that this is some Norman Rockwellesque fantasy. Much of the book discusses both urban and developing-nation approaches to the idea of increased local economic participation as a way to alleviate both some of our ecological trouble and some of our social disconnection. Note "increased" and "some"--again, I'm talking trajectory here, not endpoint. 

The reason it's so hard for us to imagine such a society precisely reflects the degree to which we've become hypr-individualized in a high consumer society. I don't think there's much danger we'll submerge our individualism in some communal future; I do think if we figured out ways to temper it some we might be happier and the planet as well. 

At any rate, I'm very grateful for the many insights.

And I do think things are starting to move on the environmental front. I spent the day giving the keynote talk at the CERES conference of big businesses trying to deal with global warming. There was a kind of receptivity there wouldn't have been two years ago. And two weekends ago I had the great fun of helping to organize stepitup07.org, which showed the potential political power of local communities--check out the pictures to see what I mean.

Thanks to all for the relentless intelligence always a hallmark of tpm--bill 

Evil Texas oil Republicans - must be why Texas has the highest MW in installed wind energy generating capacity in the country.

Could it also be because Texas is large, mostly flat, and home to some of the world's strongest and most dependable winds?

I hope people actually get a chance to read the book (if not from your local bookstore than from that community institution par excellence the public library) so they can see that I attempt to grapple with most of the points raised here.

As someone who read "Deep Economy" very recently, I'd like to confirm this. (Funny thing about books -- they can cover topics in a lot more depth than a couple of essays can.)

In particular, the idea that this is some Norman Rockwellesque fantasy. Much of the book discusses both urban and developing-nation approaches to the idea of increased local economic participation as a way to alleviate both some of our ecological trouble and some of our social disconnection. Note "increased" and "some"--again, I'm talking trajectory here, not endpoint.

Exactly. As someone who is probably one of the few people here who has actually worked on a farm, I'm not looking at this with rose-colored glasses. It's just that I don't have any illusions about the status quo. "Staying the course" indefinitely simply isn't an option. Things will change; the only question is whether we make the changes or whether reality makes them for us.

"For example, while issues of community are timeless, the problems of many suburban communities are completely modern. They're just built wrong, geographically hostile to community health, mind and body. The mall, a temple to materialism and physical sloth, inevitably becomes the social hub"

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I agree with you 100 percent and I think this paragraph was very well written. When I lived in Burbank, I had two small children in a double stroller, and I got quite sick of our family outing being strolling around a strip mall or inside a mall. There wasn't much else to do. There are some hiking trails in Burbank but it's not for a baby stroller. I craved nature big time, and ended up pulling a 180 as I moved to a mountain ski/lake resort town which is in the midst of a national forest. And I am overjoyed living in a mountain resort town, cold weather half the year and all. (Although it may not last as my internet business income is going slowly downhill.)

But I can visualize from your description of the way it is, the way it could be, in the cities. I always advocate pedestrian only outdoor shopping promenades, no cars allowed. These are the modern day bazarres and they can be the cure for the strip mall blahs. And yes more sidewalks, light rail, protected bike lanes, trees and shade, all are some antidotes to the stale strip mall concrete jungles. It is surprising we don't see more cities and areas designed by a feng shui expert rather than by the same old designs where the car is king and concrete is the rule.

Trying to be an environmentalist in LA is a depressing experience. But you can be an environmentalist with hope living in a rural area.

Could you recommend a Wendell Berry starting point? I loved the quotations from him in The Omnivore's Dilemma (also an outstanding book on The Way We Live Now, but a bestseller so I assume many are familiar with it). The only problem is - he has a massive oeuvre. Suggestions?

I think that we can agree on fundamentals: It take a village to raise a child, and it takes a community to keep us going. The relationships we have matter more for our well-being than what we own. One reason for our modern malaise, the stagnant levels of well-being in the United States despite greatly increased affluence, has been that our modern form of affluence has undermined rather than enhanced our community life. Improved transportation can enhance relationships by allowing us to maintain physical contact with others but the spread of the automobile divides communities into islands separated by dangerous rivers of cars. To escape the noise and hazards of car-infested towns and cities, we move to isolated houses in quiet suburbs where, to support our cars and houses, we work longer hours and travel greater distances.
Again, the problem is not economic growth or technology. Our high level of productivity and our great ingenuity could be used to build improved light-rail systems (like that in use in Portland, Oregon) or to free time for people to devote to artistic and social life. (If productivity increases since 1970 had gone to reducing work hours instead of raising income, we would still have fewer than 2 cars per household but would be working only 20 hours a week!) Such policies, however, would undermine profits for our car companies, real-estate interests, and others. The barrier to an improved society is not economic growth, it is not technology, it is capitalism and the America’s corporate-dominated politics.

Money can't buy happiness unless you know what to do with it.

Building carless development by pooling individuals' money can be an alternative to capitalism and corporate politics; indeed, this is what some people have done by forming cohousing projects. In effect, these projects build towards a more sustainable community by creating a new state politics and economic system. Great! Wouldn't it be better if we could build on these on a national level with a political movement that would transform our corpoarte-dominated politics?

The behavioral sink theory is a bit flawed imo and not really applicable to humans so much as rats. People are not rats in cages. Even in the densest cities, people are free to move about, form social circles, have homes, cafes, clubs, and places of varying degrees of privacy and socialization.

In places like Tokyo, London, NYC and other high density major cities, people are highly social, probably the most social and outgoing people in the world. They have the most oppurtunity to experience interesting new arts, entertainments, cuisines, philosophies, etc.

But they also have more "boundaries" for public situations, such as transit, which is appropriate.

For example, when you get in a crowded elevator with strangers, don't most people become more quiet as opposed to trying to get to know all the fellow occupants? This makes perfect sense. You may be coming from a social dinner and on the way out for a night on the town, but the elevator is not a social construct.

That's still minuscule compared with European companies, so again, thanks for making my point.

Also, Texas is not a monolithic Rt Wing, Big Oil, Republican state. You're attempt to argue that because Texas has wind generation, then Big Oil Republicans must be for it, is absurdly misguided.

There are many high-tech, clean-tech, liberal Texans. The larger Texan cities are predominantly Democratic and especially the intellectual hubs like Austin which is very liberal.

Texas Ranchers and other rural voters tend to lean Republican on social issues, though they're just as interested in clean power as anyone else. Such social conservatives but economic and environmental moderates also stopped coal in Texas.

Texas Big Oil Republicans are a small but wealthy and powerful group primarily in the burbs around places like Houston who have hijacked policy to a large extent. They're very much against clean power like wind, for obvious reasons, and have the clout to lobby Washington and Texas through money laundering scams like DeLay ran. Texas big oil deserves zero credit for Texas wind power, and have fought it all the way.