Spill, Baby, Spill

Last week on Urban Omnibus, Vishaan Chakrabarti penned an exceptional essay on the impact of unchecked materialism on the future of American leadership and prosperity. 

With his timely, tongue-in-cheek title, “Spill, Baby, Spill,” Chakrabarti unflinchingly blames America's lack of self-discipline and introspection for its oil dependency, sprawl and obesity. With the Gulf of Mexico invoked as a poignant backdrop, Chakrabarti questions America's ability to clean up its messes, literally and metaphorically.

Gesturing toward the future of global economic leadership in Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries), Chakrabarti has only this to say about America:

"As goes our land use, so goes our economy. As our bodies grow horizontally with our cities, we spend more money per capita on healthcare then any nation on earth. And as we feed our cravings by pouring money into roads instead of rails, care instead of prevention, and oil wars instead of renewable resources, we finally arrive at the gaping sprawl of our deficit."

Spill, Baby, Spill is the fifth in a series of essays Chakrabarti has published for Urban Omnibus called A Country of Cities. They are all available online at urbanomnibus.net.

  

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