Author and speaker James Howard Kunstler is perhaps the most outspoken critic of suburban sprawl and alternative energy as a replacement for cheap oil. In a pair of TED talks in 2004 and 2010 he shares his perspective and explains how our we lost our “places.” (a word of caution: Kunstler uses colorful language at times)
For a deeper dive into how we got to where we are and some thoughts on where we might be going Kunstler also wrote a few books worth reading: