Posted on 06/30/2008 9:43:27 PM PDT by B-Chan
Life on the fringes of U.S. suburbia becomes untenable with rising gas costs
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.
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.
[...]
Some proclaim the unfolding demise of suburbia.
"Many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and '70s - slums characterized by poverty, crime and decay," said Christopher Leinberger, an urban land use expert, in a recent essay in the Atlantic Monthly.
Most experts do not share such apocalyptic visions, seeing instead a gradual reordering.
"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."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
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About effin time. Maybe now the yuppies will move back to their trendy lofts and converted warehouses downtown, and leave the country folk alone (stop complaining when they start their farm chores around oh-dark-thirty). Maybe then too the prices will drop back to reasonable levels so I can get my ten acres at an appropriately-valued price.
These high gas prices are the best thing that’s come along for the socialsists since they made up “Global Warming”.
While things will change as they always do, I think this is a bit overly dramatic.
I just don’t see folks leaving 2,000 to 5,000 sq ft “mcmansions” to go squeeze into a bunch of innercity apartments .
Sure some folks fortunes will fall and other will rise and people will shift. But thats always the case.
Exactly. I'm thinking maybe some of the recent demographic changes in New Hampshire and Vermont might start moving the other way as left-wingers start moving back to their traditional haunts. Bein' as their so sensitive about their carbon footprints an' all.
Do you mean world trade was not good for national security after all?
Well, I for one agree with peter - all those folks should flee to the safety and security of the big city and let the ‘burbs return to its natural state. And I volunteer to stick around and make sure that it does ;’}
Well, then, Peter S. Goodman ... Let’s drill, shall we?
I didn’t even think of that. The lib policies that are allowing prices to rise to ridiculous heights may well rob them of the majority that gave them that power to misuse. If it goes that way, the really Blue states will get more Blue, but some of the pale Blue states will shift back to dark red. Of course, we’ll have to really keep an eye on the electoral college then, because that’s when they’ll start screaming to abolish it and “let every vote count”.
The folks we want make have fortunes that fall this November are the democRATS and Rino's in congress that have caused this mess.
Oh, how the sanctimonious urbanites would love to force the people who fled the hellholes to have to eat crow and move back, give up their cushy suburban lifestyles and their safe schools and nice neighborhood markets and become miserable in the big city like everybody else.
The a-holes who write WEEDS for Showtime should just love this story.
I have thought this for awhile. I think if McCain wins, it will be in a squeaker...he takes Texas and Florida easily, wins Ohio and Michigan in close contests, takes Pennsylvania even more narrowly. Meanwhile, Obama takes the large cities like NY, SF and CHI in the large, traditionally “D” States by larger margins than ever...
Such that Obama wins the “popular” vote 49.8 - 48.7; while McCain wins the Electoral College 290 - 248, and the Presidency.
If you thought the Libs were darn well near insane after 2000 and 2004; just wait until they lose again! Screaming?They’ll be insufferable!
And we can put an end to the "purple" here in Virginia. The fact that homes in the outer suburbs where I live are only now starting to becoming affordable again is a huge plus.
Why? Except on the war, McCain will give them everything BO will. And, they'll have bipartisan cover when cap-and-trade trashes our economy and raises energy prices everywhere.
Me: "You see this (holds up two fingers rubbing together)? The sound of the world's smallest violin playing strictly for you."
“...set far from urban jobs.”
Bloody European moron. Companies seek out stable individuals who are willing to work.That means young families with children, Christian, educated.
These companies are not locating in liberal hellholes populated by head-bangers, with three inch steel washers hanging from their tongues, a severe case of herpes and a barely functioning cocaine-addled brain.
A tour of nearly any American liberal city reveals giant clusters of shuttered factories, crumbling infrastructure and boarded up downtown districts.
Exurbia is the new America. Why would Americans move to the city so they can drive to their jobs in exurbia 30 miles away?
This guy is a moron.
It doesn’t make sense to move back in the city. Many hospitals, malls, businesses and other facilities have been movin g out to the ‘burbs along with the people. For many, their jobs are now in the ‘burbs.
I agree with you. If everyone began moving back into the city, then the value of those 2,000 - 5,000 sq ft mcmansions would go to zero because no one would buy them.
Also, there isn't enough room in the cities for all of us. There may have been enough room 50 years ago when the population was less than 200,000...but not now because the population is over 300,000.
If someone were a journalist, writing fantasies about people moving back into the filthy disease-ridden crime-infested Peoples' Collectives, they would have no idea about employers building suburban campuses, or famous hospitals building treatment centers equipped with the best and latest equipment "Out Here".
How would a journalist know anything about where the JOBS are, anyway?
One only has to commute to the City on the train for ONE Flu season to learn their lesson.
You're right. Most of the journalists and economists who are speculating that suburban land prices will drop must live in the city themselves. In Buffalo, for example, out of 550,000 jobs, only 50,000 are downtown. I suspect that's a fairly common percentage among medium-sized cities.
Most jobs in America are now in the suburbs and people travel from one suburb to another to get to work and home again. Downtown is a place to go for the occasional night out. I think the speculation has gotten ahead of itself.
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