SUBURBAN TEXAS is not Mayberry, of course—far from it. And megalopolitan Houston, home of Rice University, is further from it still. That's why, when Kunstler visits with optimistic-minded faculty members at Rice—where Nobel Prize winner Richard Smalley did his work in nanotechnology—he throws enough darts to pop all their balloons.

Whatever miserable suburban problems Dallas has, well, Houston's got 'em double, he announces. "And don't think anything's going to change if there's different political leadership," he says. "Bill Clinton was as much of a cheerleader for the suburban economy as anybody." And John Kerry? "He's just a haircut in search of a brain."

Kunstler rolls on like this until a young professor reminds him that he's telling a "very bleak story about our future."

"Uh-huh," Kunstler agrees.

"What are we supposed to do?" the professor asks. "Go out behind the barn and shoot ourselves?"

"You have to think about what's necessary," Kunstler says. Rescale agriculture, reorganize local commerce networks, replace the box and chain stores . . . he goes down the list. And don't forget to rebuild the railroads. "Nothing would have a greater impact on our petroleum use than a better train system, and the fact that we aren't talking about it shows what a bunch of clowns we are. We are clowns! We aren't paying any attention to what's important in this country!"

The professor ponders this impossible to-do list. And then his survivalist instincts kick in. He's got a second home in the rural Texas Hill Country! He's got solar panels and he barely draws electricity from the grid, and he's got crops under tillage. Isn't that a decent survival plan?

"In times of significant upheaval, the countryside tends to be a really disorderly place," Kunstler naysays. Texas would have extra trouble: Too many people with guns, he explains.