Clearly, I have a penchant for old show-tune-ee, 50’s movie musical songs. But they are catchy, and appropos for this series of topics.
But I digress. On with the show.
Everyday there seems to be a new article about the cost of gas and what it means to the future of suburban America. As you might have guessed, I have long taken issue with the constant and consistent design of suburban subdivisions of “little boxes on the hillside”
, and secretly look forward to the day they stop being so popular.
But what does the increase in the cost of suburban living mean to the current state of American livelihood? America and the term ’suburb’ are pratically ubiquitous. Since the end of War War II, the last 60 years of infrastructure development has concentrated on the connection of suburbs. Most public transportation initiatives have been created for suburban ”choice riders”–the commuters who need to quickly get into the center city and just as quickly get out. Our interstate system, more or less, has also been extended and expanded to do the same.
The image of the suburb as the only way to live in a safe, clean environment has helped produce, a deep fear for many, of all things urban? Does the ever climbing price of gas mean many will take a closer look at urban living? Does this gas “issue” really mean that people will move to communities where there is not a quarter of an acre between them and there neighbor ?
- Garrison Keillior says goodbye Winnebago…Hello, front porch
Darn, I always wanted to take a cross country trip in one…if I had only done it 5 years ago!
- Arthur J. Magida says the American Family Car Trip might be going the way of the Dodo bird.
Perhaps, more folks will do local stuff that can be reached by the commuter train, like here.
- The U.K.’s, Telegraph, thinks there is a broad cultural shift going on.
The question is, is this shift happening for families too? Seems the experts haven’t dug that deep yet.
- But, alas! In NYC, some families take the suburban dive–only to return to the city.
I wonder how much the “City Snob” factor has to do with that…after all NYC prides itself on being the exception, leader, to every rule.
The jury is still out on what gas prices and inflation will really mean to the livelihood of 2nd and 3rd tier suburbs which require a car to go to 7-11, but it can’t be helping when families are already squeezed by the ‘work harder make the less’ movement of the economy. The big impact to me–is when families start moving closer to cities–and that would take either a significant fix to the public education system in most places or the decision to bite the bullet on private, charter, or montessori education. But that is a discussion for another day.
