Long before the recent spike in the price of energy, environmentalists decried suburban sprawl 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. <...> More than three-fourths of prospective home buyers are now 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, the national brokerage firm. Some now 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," declared Christopher B. Leinberger, an urban land use expert, in a recent essay in The Atlantic Monthly. <...> In a recent study, Mr. 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, Mr. Cortright found. Basic household arithmetic appears to be furthering the trend: In 2003, the average suburban household spent $1,422 a year on gasoline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By April of this year -- when gas prices were about $3.60 a gallon-- the same household was spending $3,196 a year, more than doubling consumption in dollar terms in less than five years.
Long before the recent spike in the price of energy, environmentalists decried suburban sprawl 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. <...>
More than three-fourths of prospective home buyers are now 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, the national brokerage firm.
Some now 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," declared Christopher B. Leinberger, an urban land use expert, in a recent essay in The Atlantic Monthly. <...>
In a recent study, Mr. 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, Mr. Cortright found.
Basic household arithmetic appears to be furthering the trend: In 2003, the average suburban household spent $1,422 a year on gasoline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By April of this year -- when gas prices were about $3.60 a gallon-- the same household was spending $3,196 a year, more than doubling consumption in dollar terms in less than five years.
"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,"
No, they won't, because unlike cities where you can always mug and scavenge, and there's the option of walking or biking, exurbs are useless unless you can grow your own food and hunt. And the McMansions weren't built to last, so they'll start falling apart within a few years.
If the middle classes can't afford to live in them, poor people certainly won't be able to. They probably won't even be able to afford to squat in them.
