Most of life in the USA outside of central metropolitan areas is based on the automobile and what has heretofore been relatively cheap transportation costs for commuters living in the suburbs and traveling into central cities for employment. As a result, cities like Virginia Beach, Virginia - the most populous city in Virginia - have in essence virtually no public mass transit whatsoever. Other than in limited pockets of the city, an automobile is required to do just about anything whether it be commuting to work, grocery shopping, etc. Moreover, many suburbanites have shifted to massive SUV's - not that they ever use them off road - for the perceived status and other non-utilitarian reasons. Suddenly, $4.00+ gasoline is making this underlying basis for life go to Hell in a hand basket and commuting costs are wreaking havoc on many.
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Will gasoline and energy prices result in a rethinking of the suburban dream? The hand writing has been on the wall for some time - Americans have just refused to see the reality of a changing world and that artificially low US gas prices could not last forever. As a former suburbanite, I love living in an older central city and find little motivation to travel to restaurants or other venues outside of a 3-5 mile radius of home most of the time. My office is less than a 15 minute walk from home. It saves tons of money in terms of gas and wear and tear on my Jeep. This International Herald Tribune story looks at what is beginning to perhaps happen and it suggests that living patterns might not remain the same. Here are some highlights:
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ELIZABETH, Colorado: Suddenly, the economics of American suburban life are under assault as skyrocketing energy prices inflate the costs of reaching, heating and cooling homes on the outer edges of metropolitan areas.
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But life on the distant fringes of suburbia is beginning to feel untenable. 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, Boyle recently paid $121 to fill his pickup truck with diesel. The price of propane to heat their spacious house has more than doubled in recent years. Though Boyle finds city life unappealing, it's now up for reconsideration.
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As the realization takes hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a restructuring with lasting consequences, the high cost of 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. In Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Minneapolis, homes beyond the urban core have been falling in value faster than those within, according to analysis by Moody's Economy.com.
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More than three-fourths of prospective homebuyers are more inclined to live in an urban area because of fuel prices, according to a recent survey of 903 real estate agents with Coldwell Banker, a national brokerage. Some proclaim the unfolding demise of suburbia.
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"It's like an ebbing of this suburban tide," said Joe Cortright, an economist at the consulting group Impresa in Portland, Oregon. "There's going to be this kind of reversal of desirability. Typically, Americans have felt the periphery was most desirable, and now there's going to be a reversion to the center." In a recent study, Cortright found that house prices in the urban centers of Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland and Tampa have fared significantly better than those in the suburbs. So-called exurbs - communities sprouting on the distant edges of metropolitan areas - have suffered worst of all, Cortright found.
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Long before the recent spike in the price of energy, environmentalists decried suburban sprawl as a waste of land, energy, and tax dollars: Governments from Virginia to California have in recent decades lavished resources on building roads and schools for new subdivisions in the outer rings of development while skimping on maintaining facilities closer in. Many governments now focus on reviving their downtowns.
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