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But life on the edges of suburbia is beginning to feel untenable. Mr. Boyle and his wife must drive nearly an hour to their jobs in the high-tech corridor of southern Denver. With gasoline at more than $4 a gallon, Mr. Boyle recently paid $121 to fill his pickup truck with diesel fuel. In March, the last time he filled his propane tank to heat his spacious house, he paid $566, more than twice the price of 5 years ago.
Though Mr. Boyle finds city life unappealing, it is now up for reconsideration.
“Living closer in, in a smaller space, where you don’t have that commute,” he said. “It’s definitely something we talk about. Before it was ‘we spend too much time driving.’ Now, it’s ‘we spend too much time and money driving.’ ”
Across the nation, the realization is taking hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a change with lasting consequences. The shift to costlier fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes set far from urban jobs [Peter S. Goodman, "Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs," New York Times, 2008.06.25].
We kept our Lake Herman house relatively small (1232 square feet), and I can still ride my bike the five miles to Madison and back, so we won't be moving to town any time soon. But it will be interesting to see the shift of urban development back to livable urban centers, where people can walk to work and shop and don't spend their lives encased and isolated in big cars and houses.
Maybe it'll come down to the gov't where you are going to live and the size of house you live in.
ReplyDeleteYes it could easily happen.
There's talk in some towns about making drive-thrus illegal.
The point of the NY Times report appears to be that market forces are taking care of that for us.
ReplyDeleteBut if you're really worried about gov't overstepping its bounds, Anon, how do you feel about the gov't slurping up your tax dollars to subsidize the oil industry (few hundred billion a year in military spending) and subprime lenders (buyouts of mortgages that never should have been issued)?
Don't count your insulated windows before they've been installed...Americans haven't seen the light from higher fuel, food and utility costs yet. While SUV and Pickup sales are slowing, nobody has quit driving them. Every other vehicle on the Interstate is a gas guzzler and they're the ones driving the speed limit, plus a little. We're a long way from yielding to the pain. Remember, Europe has been paying $5 a gallon for fuel for over a decade. Gas would have to hit $10 a gallon before most Americans would dramatically change their lifestyles.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived in Hawaii, my place was only 350 square feet. Utilities were almost nonexistent (electricity for the computer, a couple of lamps, and the toaster oven). I rode a bike, and didn't own a car at all. It was a cool life! Let me tell you, it takes no time at all to clean a 350-square-foot condo.
ReplyDeleteGot in pretty good shape riding up a 500-foot vertical climb just to get a loaf of Big Island Bakery sourdough rye bread after swimming across Kailua Bay and back on summer mornings.
Of course I was a single guy ... How much space did I need? I was outside most of the time anyway.
Why am I in South Dakota? By choice, believe it or not. Taxes and rentals were astronomical in Hawaii. (They could get away with the onerous taxation because of their weather. I doubt we could get away with it in South Dakota.) I pay the same here now -- even after nearly a decade -- to drive an old pickup and live in a house of my own, weed garden and all. (A McMansion, this ain't.)
I will attest that leading an environmentally low-impact life does not have to be drudgery. It really is true that the less "stuff" one has, the less one has to look after, and the more time is available for purely creative pursuits. I sometimes joke that in Hawaii, I was paying for the privilege of not having to own anything. In retrospect, it was not an altogether bad deal.
Stan: 500-foot vertical climb?! You are a wild man!
ReplyDeleteLess stuff = more freedom: very apt observation! And especially evident to folks who backpack. :-)
You should have seen the bike I had in Kona. You could-a clumb trees with the doggone thing.
ReplyDelete