I knew commuters in California who would spend one to two hours, one way, going to work. They could make more where they worked but buy affordable homes elsewhere.
If prices stay high and unstable, it will eventually effect the burbs. First though, the prices will affect what we drive, how we commute, what time of day we commute, etc.
What an amazing conclusion!
The most productive citizens live in the suburbs. They will move their work there.
The socialist cities will be annihilated.
Telecommuting
The price of gasoline won't matter at all. Trips might be thought out a little more but gasoline is still cheap.
Oil was only $10.00 a barrel in 2005? Who Knew.
well families are NOT going to move into the jungle urban homes unless they are protected by gun toting security forces like homeowner in the philipines
I'm one of those commuters. I work in West LA and live in Santa Clarita. It has to do with more than affordable homes though; the politics in West LA are almost communist, while Santa Clarita is a conservative haven.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
A longtime leftist wet dream, with its political implications of growing Democratic power.
But it's not going to happen. People will put sails or windmills on their cars before they subject their children to the inner cities of America.
OTOH, the "death of the suburbs" would create pressure for housing "close to work," and thus house prices would increase to the point where incremental gas costs are preferable to living closer in.
The net result, probably, is not the death of the suburbs, but rather an economic downturn stemming from people being forced to cut back on non-essentials due to lack of ready cash.
I remember when PCs first came out. They didn't do much and cost a lot. They reached a cost/benefit point in the mid-90's where they gave enough bang for the buck that they became as ubiquitus as the tv in the family room. Technology, price, performance merged to make them as necessary as indoor plumbing to many americans.
The gas prices could ramp up the same set of events for telecommuting. And on a side note, with flying becoming more and more of a hassle (Imagine having to check laptops only to find the TSA people stole them), teleconferencing could make a comeback in a big way as well. In a new iteration it would be MUCH more effective than in the 90's.
I guess we'll see.
I am thinking the Micropolis envisioned by Dr. Robert Prehoda back in 1979 could actually come to pass.