Posted on 07/16/2008 5:43:59 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Debbie Kelly and her husband, Tom, have been living the dream for years.
They've got a cozy home nestled in the Wyoming Valley, the bucolic Iowa County setting where architect Frank Lloyd Wright drew his inspiration.
Deer graze in the yard. Orioles flock to the bird feeder. When nights are clear, the Milky Way lights the sky.
It's a little slice of heaven -- save for the 45-mile commute to work.
It wasn't a big financial drain driving into Madison, even as gasoline passed $2 a gallon in 2004 or $3 last summer. But for Debbie Kelly, $4 fuel has been the tipping point.
Now, instead of driving all the way to her nursing job at the Dean Clinic on Fish Hatchery Road, Kelly will often park in Verona and ride her bicycle the rest of the way. One night a week, she camps in the back of her pickup truck at Lake Farm County Park, south of the Beltline on the shores of Lake Waubesa.
"They've got the hottest showers," said Kelly, 54, a mother of three.
Kelly admits she's thought about moving closer to the city. The time spent driving and the rising costs are beginning to wear. But she said her husband isn't budging.
"Tom will probably go with the property," she said. "I don't think he'll ever leave the valley."
Whether high fuel prices are going to affect where people in Wisconsin live remains to be seen. It's not that simple to just pick up and move, especially for those who already own a home.
Still, it's a question crossing the minds of many who chose to buy a home miles from their place of employment or school.
"It really hit me when it cost nearly $100 to fill up the truck last week," said Rich Eggleston, who lives in Fitchburg and commutes to his job downtown at the Alliance of Cities.
And there are early indications that life in the suburbs is starting to look less attractive to home buyers.
Consider the median price of homes sold in McFarland is down nearly 19 percent from a year ago, falling from $258,000 to $210,000, according to the latest figures from DaneCountyMarket.com.
In Mount Horeb, prices are down 14 percent. In Fitchburg, they're off 8 percent. In the New Glarus/Belleville/Monticello market along the Dane-Green County border, prices are down nearly 10 percent.
While real estate insiders say it's dangerous to draw conclusion from just a few months of data -- Verona, Waunakee and Sauk City, for example, have all seen prices climb in 2008 -- there seems a growing realization that gasoline prices are not going down again.
That's left some observers wondering if the drivable suburb -- the model for virtually all post-World War II development in Wisconsin and the U.S. -- has run its course.
"I think we're looking at a tremendous societal shift," said Steve Hiniker, executive director of 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, a statewide group that advocates for better land use. "Urban areas such as Madison and Milwaukee will continue to fill in and modern transit will soon be a part of the urban setting. Suburbs will continue to lose value as gas prices hit the stratosphere."
Indeed, the future of the suburbs in the face of rising energy costs has sparked a flurry of national reports in the past months. Many have come from groups that would like nothing better than to see an end to sprawl and a reinvestment in mass transit and the urban core.
One study from Chicago-based CEOs for Cities argues that soaring gasoline prices are what really popped the nation's housing market bubble.
"The popular narrative on the collapse of housing prices has only blamed exotic lending practices," said the group's economist Joseph Cortright. "But the much more important story is about how higher gas prices have re-drawn the map of urban real estate values."
In another report, Arthur Nelson of Virginia Tech predicts the nation is facing a surplus of 22 million large lot homes (houses built on 1/6 an acre of more) by 2025. That represents roughly 40 percent of the "McMansions" in existence today, places like Bergamont, Bishop's Bay and Hawk's Landing in Dane County.
And long-time sprawl critics like James Howard Kunstler have cheered the higher fuel prices as finally bringing an end to decades of suburban madness. He said trying to find solutions to keep the "Happy Motoring" utopia running is naive.
"The truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used french-fry oil will allow us to power Wal-Mart, Disney World and the Interstate highway system -- or even a fraction of these things -- in the future," Kunstler said. "We have to make other arrangements."
Closer to home, not everyone shares the same doom-and-gloom scenario.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said fuel prices haven't reached the point where Americans have been forced to make fundamental changes. Rather, he sees a more gradual shift to a balanced mix of transit, compact development, walkable communities -- and single-passenger vehicles.
"I just got back from Europe and people still love to drive but they have other options," he said. "Unfortunately we've created a physical environment in this country that makes us slaves to our cars."
Cieslewicz said those who oppose mass transit or improved rail service often argue that environmentalists want to take away the freedom to drive.
"People on the other side of this issue use scare tactics and say everyone will be forced to give up their cars," he said. "But there is actually more freedom in having the option to bike or walk somewhere without fear of getting killed."
Troy Thiel, who moved to Madison in 2003 from the Chicago area and narrowly lost a 2007 bid for a seat on the City Council, predicts the suburban housing market will weather the storm. He notes that many of the area's largest employment centers are no longer located downtown -- including Epic Systems in Verona, American Family on the far east side and Discovery Springs in Middleton.
A sales agent with First Weber West Towne, Thiel also questions whether fuel prices are having much impact at all on an already depressed real estate market. He notes that sales of homes and condos within five miles of the State Capitol were down 30 percent for the first six months of 2008 versus a 25 percent sales decline overall.
"People are choosing more efficient personal autos and will locate closer to their jobs, many of which are already in the 'burbs," said Thiel. "Rich folk are putting their SUVs in the garage. That way $4 gas looks like $3 gas and they're just fine with that."
Needless to say, those who can afford it don't feel the fuel pinch as acutely.
But rising oil prices are costing everyone plenty. The average American household will spend over $3,200 to fuel their vehicles this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than twice the cost of just five years ago.
In Dane County, drivers are now spending a combined $428 million more on gasoline than in 2004, according to professor Andy Lewis, community development specialist for University of Wisconsin Extension. That's money that could have gone to a lot of other uses, whether affordable housing or commuter rail.
Lewis noted that in 2006, when gasoline averaged $3 a gallon, households with incomes under $14,999 were already spending eight percent of their income on fuel versus three percent for households with incomes over $100,000.
"As expected, the lower income households are feeling the pinch more then wealthy households," said Lewis.
On the other hand, Alan Harvey, chairman of the town of Windsor, said Dane County enjoys the advantage of having a diverse economy -- a mix of both urban, rural and suburban development.
"Clearly, all of society is going to be looking at a period of adjustment," he said. "But I think we're pretty well-positioned since economic activity is spread throughout the county."
Harvey said the real impact is being felt in communities outside Dane County like Fall River or Pardeeville, where people have purchased homes because they got a lot more square footage for their dollar.
"Those advantages start to disappear when commuting costs get too high," said Harvey, who is skeptical about the ability of mass transit to solve the problem.
Madison Ald. Robbie Webber, who defeated Thiel in the District 5 council race, has championed higher density urban development and mass transit as the long-term solution. Despite the growth in the suburbs, she said Madison remains the engine that drives the area economy with its downtown and UW campus.
"Even lunch is easier to get to without a car in a dense area than in a suburban business park," she said.
Webber said the concern isn't so much with Middleton or Verona, two places where real estate values have been holding.
"What about Mount Horeb, Dodgeville, Lake Mills, Edgerton, Portage?" she said. "Those long commutes, with no hope of transit, are going to be pretty painful."
To that end, commercial real estate developer Terrence Wall says he realized several years ago that rising gasoline prices were going to dramatically impact Dane County. For that reason, he's pursuing mixed-use projects combining office, residential and retail at Tribeca Village in Middleton and the West End in Verona.
"I've been warning people for the last three years that demand for oil in China was going to send prices skyrocketing," said Wall, president of T. Wall Properties.
Dan Miller, a Realtor with Keller Williams who maintains the DaneCountyMarket.com Web site with colleague Shawn Kriewaldt, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions about the long-term impact of gasoline prices on the local housing market.
"For example, I just helped somebody sell a house in Madison and buy one in Mount Horeb because they work at Epic and wanted to be closer to their job," he said.
Miller said a few more months of data may help paint a clearer picture.
"I think we're on the early part of the curve right now," he said. "Most folks spend several months looking for a home before they make an offer, and once an offer is accepted, it can be another 1 to 3 months until the closing. Given the lag between the decision to buy and the actual purchase, my hunch is the data will become more telling later this fall and winter."
At this point, most commuters are just biting the bullet, trying to combine trips or share rides when possible.
Nicole Weisenberger, who drives 100 miles round-trip from Madison to her job as an occupational therapist in Beloit, has found a few ways to offset the high gas prices. One is purchasing a Pontiac Vibe, which gets over 30 mpg on the highway. The other is cutting back on doggy day care from three days to one day a week.
"To be honest with you, I think the dog has been suffering more than I have," she said.
Same here but in my case it was forty years.
These "journalists" are just not going to give up trying to shove their agenda down our throats.
Decades ago, EMPLOYERS fled the corrupt, filthy cities and built industrial parks and campuslike corporate headquarters out where people LIVED.
They keep trundling out the Wonderful Workers' Paradise idea of living in urban rat cages and projects. They can CALL them Upscale Gentrification all they want. I visited my brother's really expensive NYC apartment years ago when he lived there.
I'd rather die.
Besides, if someone is commuting to a city, they are supposedly doing so because the city "Pays better". Well, then it should "Pay Better" enough so that adding a hundred or two a month can be handled.
They probably wouldn’t need Doggy Day Care at all if they spent more time with their dog. Which they could if they weren’t on the road an hour and a half a day.
If they worked close to home, they could run home at lunch and play with the dog, they would leave later, come home earlier.
When did I ever say I wanted government to dictate where we live? If you really think drilling will bring gas back down to $2/gallon, you’re delusional. This a problem of global supply and demand, and it’s only going to get worse. We need to ween ourselves off oil, not kick the can down the road.
The high prices are good because they’ll allow the market to figure out something more efficient much faster than any government program will. In fact, I’m glad there’s so much gridlock in Washington over this, because that will keep them from getting in the way of progress.
Secretly? Not the libs I know. They are publicly delighted.They think it is going to force the rest of us onto public transportation and curtail our mobility and will give them more space on the street for their Volvos and BMWs.
You didn’t. I did. And I’m not delusional. I agree with you on quite a few points.
Oh, wait...maybe I AM delusional, LOL! :)
I obviously wasn’t speaking literally. My point is that drilling will be expensive and largely ineffective.
To answer your question, I expect the value of my house to raise, which is another plus. Taxes, on the other hand, should go down, because there the tax base will increase more than the expenses of running the same level of government service.
[I’m not begging the government to drill for more oil. I just want them to get the heck out of the way and let companies do it.]
Exactly.
You say this as a Libertarian?
BINGO
How do you expect the “same level of government services” when there’s an influx of people?
The reason that things are bad in cities like Milwaukee and Detroit is because people abandoned the cities in the first place. Minneapolis and St. Paul are certainly not problem-free, but have never had the level of urban blight a lot of other cities have. A big reason for that is because people have continually lived in the city. A city like Detroit or Baltimore seems so hopeless because it’s so abandoned. That contributes to crime and makes it more expensive to police.
I don’t think it’s a sense of entitlement to want to keep your kids safe; that’s a normal desire. The sense of entitlement comes when you think you deserve something you can’t afford. Are you better then all of the people still trapped in some of those neighborhoods? Plenty of them would like to keep their children safe also.
You’re absolutely correct, it *is* Bush’s fault that this lady can’t send her dog to day care 3 days a week. :-)
So you want us all to be trapped and miserable?
The sense of entitlement comes when you think you deserve something you can’t afford.
If you couldn't afford something at the onset, I agree with you. But circumstances change. You can't always predict which circumstance will change, in which direction they'll change and how it will affect you.
I completely agree with you. The mantra that “Government should do something about it” is a very dangerous and slippery slope.
New York City is full of financial opportunity and is very low crime. They can get people to pay quite a bit to live there, as it’s very desireable. The liberalness of cities has a lot more to do with the population than the mere fact that it’s an urban setting. Cities might not be so liberal if more conservatives moved back into them. Also, cities are inherently liberal - San Diego managed to stay pretty conservative for a long time.
I’m not against the middle class, but we need to accept that cheap gas is a thing of the past. The middle class moved out of the cities decades ago, and now they may start to move back in. If they figure out they can afford to stay in the suburbs, more power to them.
I wager that gas will never be less than $3.50 again, even if we start drilling. This a problem of global supply and demand. It’s only going to get worse. However, I do understand that you only mean to drill as stop-gap, and we’re otherwise on the same page. I think leaving the prices high is the best way for the free market to figure out what the best alternative is, rather than have the government expand drilling and then expect the government to figure out what we’re going to do next.
If you lived in Dallas, you could vote for a new City Council.
I speak for myself and my wife. We moved from Urban California to Rural California for a reason. The urban lifestyle we grew up, and lived in most of our adult lives went to Hell. Drugs, Shootings and other Crimes, Profiteering Leftist Politicians, Offensive neighbors, housing crammed on top of one another. It was a disgusting way to have to have to live. It took years to get the stench of Urban living from our noses.
You seem to assume that we whom live in Suburbia all live in “McMansions”. That’s hardly the case. Most of the folks out in the Suburban areas live in quiet, peaceful retreat in considerably less than a “McMansion”.
We won’t move back to that crap Urban lifestyle because you or any idiot Leftist thinks we in Suburbia are consuming more than you think we should. You go ahead and live in the rat infested Urban lifestyle if you wish, but don’t haughtily condemn those of us whom had the sense to get the Hell out.
My point is that by being depending on gasoline, you’re depending on the whims of the government. They can easily make restrictions by banning drilling or raising taxes.
You got it right. My wife has an almost identical commute. Her 2007 Toyota Corolla gets 42mpg (commute is essentially all "highway driving"). When we bought her Toyota, I got rid of my Ford Ranger, which was getting 24 mpg, and took her "old" car (1993 Acura Integra), which gets 32 mpg (highway miles). "My" commute is about 2 miles each way--- :^).
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