I’m reading Earth Abides a post-apocalyptic (virus wipes out nearly all humanity) novel from 1949. I mentioned this to Matt, who pointed me to this post, “What’s Causing the “Earth Without Us” Craze in New Scifi Movies?”
Annalee posits stuff I’ve heard elsewhere, but reading Earth Abides made me realize another one. Earth without us, or, at least, without nearly everyone, is consumer heaven. If you saw I am Legend, you saw Will Smith have his choice of anything item he wanted. You actually see this in Earth Abides. Americans love to consume, and when you have no competition for stuff, when it’s no longer scarce, and when you don’t have to pay for it, what could be better?
It won’t seem that way by the end of Earth Abides. 😉
It makes you wonder which things people would still use, wear, etc., and which behaviors would still continue if there was no one around to be seen by.
Earth Abides is one of my favorite books. I love Stewart’s descriptions of how vegetation starts to poke back through the streets as time passes without human interference.
I am Legend (a crappy movie) has will smith scavenging sports cars, dvds and museum art when he’s the only nonzombie in manhatten
Check out Dead Cities by Mike Davis – urbanist / sociologist / cultural critic. Davis mentions Earth Abides specifically, and talks about quite a few other examples of cities in post-apocalyptic fiction.
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Cities-Other-Mike-Davis/dp/1565848446
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Davis_(scholar)