And what is the price in Lichtenstein?
Posted on 08/15/2006 9:32:24 AM PDT by LouAvul
Rising fuel costs are being blamed for everything from soaring utility costs to lower retail sales and higher airline tickets. And now, experts say high gas prices could reshape U.S. cities.
"Most analysts believe that crude oil prices in the $50s and $60s will be with us for some time," says Stuart Gabriel, director of the Lusk Center, a think tank at the University of Southern California devoted to studying real estate forces and trends. There's even talk of crude hitting $100 per barrel -- or 10 times what it sold for in the summer of 2005.
Once the realization soaks into the American consciousness that high-cost gas is here to stay, Gabriel predicts, those high commute prices will pull more homeowners -- even young families -- to live in central cities and create a push for more public transportation.
(Excerpt) Read more at realestate.msn.com ...
"Telecommuting..."
Many of us are there or headed that way.
Good for making money and spending money.
We can shop on the internet for lots of stuff.
First time homebuyer builders in the smalttown outlying bedroom communities of my area taking a huge hit since Katrina. Several I've talked to blame it on the high cost of gas.
It will end up reshaping the political leadership long before it significantly impacts suburban appeal in any significant way.
If someone can telecommute from thirty or forty miles away, why not just hire a guy in India for about 1/10 the salary and have him telecommute?
Nah - who wants to live in filthy cities with noise, pollution, no grass, worse-than-poor schools, high taxes, high housing prices, and high general cost of living ?
Gas will have to get pretty expensive before people with kids would move into cities. Heck, they won't even live in the inner suburbs anymore because of Section 8 and high property taxes.
Besides the money thing you have to consider the terrible toll that a 5 hour drive(total both ways)takes on a person. I would never do it again, and I think we will see more people actually commuting less because the money spent on gas will take the difference in income. Why put up with the drive if you can earn less but clear the same money working closer to home?
The alternative of course would be to move to the Bay Area, but then a lot of people simply don't want to live in that hell hole and the cost of living there is very high, that is why the pay is so good. So, they will get jobs closer to where they live instead of moving, JMO.
I believe you are misinformed.
Population is not decreasing. The rate of increase is slowing in a few developed countries but the number of people on the planet continues to increase, just as it is in the US.
This has everything to do with supply and demand and the price of oil and the price of any other resource in limited supply. We do not have an unlimited supply of cheap oil or even expensive oli.
And what is the price in Lichtenstein?
Very, very few people commute that far. Soaring gas prices could concievably affect people that drive that much, but for the vast majority of Americans, saving one hundred dollars a month in extra energy costs isn't enough to warrant moving from somewhere they like to somewhere they don't.
I'm sitting in my home 52 miles away from the office freeping/working. The trend should increase.
Lefty urban types wish that gas prices would reverse the flight to the suburbs but it will never happen.
The vast majority of people will simply take a sack lunch or stop sucking up social justice coffee to offset the increase. The downsides of inner city life are just too huge to be attractive.
There are fewer and fewer reasons to set up businesses in large cities today (aside from retail operations, I mean).
Do a quick survey among the professional class in your town and find out where their kids are living. That's the trend.
Port St. Lucie, Fl., about an hour north of West Palm Beach, hour and half north of Ft. Lauderdale and 2 north of Miami had been getting many folks buying here to get out of the crime and rat race down there.
Sales have been droping due to gas prices.
That does happen.
Hopefully, we bring special skills or training. Which is why we should encourage the next generation to get skills in school that have a market value.
We can also telecommute part of the week and visit clients at their jobs sites as needed, which they can not always easily do from India.
My generation is living in the city now. My wife and I (we're both 24) bought our house last year in the city. 4 couples we are good friends with did the same. All mention gas prices as one of the reasons.
Thought we'd been in that process for the last few decades.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but you can still find nice homes and neighborhoods within the city limits, it's not like the whole place is run-down and crime infested. And actually I prefer an older almost antique home with some character in the city close to everything over the typical cookie cutter boring homes in the suburbs. I know it all depends on the city and places like Detroit or Baltimore are out.
I telecommute right now, and the reason is there isn't anybody in India who can do what I do, as well as I do it, for 1/10 the salary, or even for the same salary or more.
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