Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia? | Hacker News Reader

Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?

businessweek.com

11 pointschaostheory15 comments

Europe lives fine, even with $8/gallon. One thing you will see right a way: People will drive smaller cars, and more fuel effientien ones. Any sedan has more than enogh of ompf with 170Hp, a small hatchback with 130hm, and maybe a small SUV with 190hp.

Right now you have so many people buying v6s and v8s with no regard for fuel efficiency.

When I lived in the UK, I lived 35 miles away from my office and spent 200 GBP / month approx on gas. About 25% of my income. 10 years ago.

Now I'm spending $240 or so a month on gas, which is a rather smaller proportion of my income. I have considerable headroom before I start to notice much pain.

In particular, I could cut my gas bill in half by trading my SRT-4 for a Honda Fit (Jazz in UK) or similar.

Scary predictions indeed!

"I believe the aggregate economic effect of these failures will be a worldwide deflationary depression. I will not be surprised if it is as bad in terms of unemployment and hardship as the 1930s. I expect that it will be attended by international political and military mischief."

"Such an oil shortfall would put at hazard such "normal" American activities as national chain retail and industrialized agriculture. I doubt that the WalMarts and K-Marts of the land will survive..."

"we are going to need local agriculture again, practiced on a smaller and more organic scale. We are going to regret turning some of our best farmland proximate to towns and cities into shopping malls and suburban housing tracts."

"We are going to have to live more locally, and more self-dependently. All our activities will have to be conducted on a finer scale...We are going to have to re-invent smaller-scaled farms (with value-adding activities), and we’re going to have to localize, or at least regionalize, commerce. We may have to start making some things again ourselves, or do without them for a while."

Those quotes aren't from this article though. They're from the same guy's article from nine years ago about what's going to happen in the aftermath of the Y2K bug. (http://kunstler.com/mags_y2k.html) He's still making the same predictions, and still has the creepy preoccupation with Wal-Mart.

So the crackhead that predicted "armageddon after y2k" (fta) says that suburbia is dead.

Maybe he needs to get out more. I certainly don't think that people are going to be moving to the inner cities or "main street america" any time soon.

If anything it will force businesses to move closer to their workforces, which is exactly what it happening here in Dallas. 20 years ago, everything was downtown. Now there are more and more businesses moving up to the 1st loop (635), the 2nd loop (Beltline), the 3rd loop (190) and even further north up to Friso and McKinney (121 area).

Look at 121 and the Tollway, Within 2 miles you've got EDS, JCPenney, Frito Lay, Countrywide, McAfee, Cadbury Schwepps, and a whole lot more. Some have been there for years, but Hall Office park at 121/Tollway is filling up as more and more companies move to where their workforce is.

yes, that is called sprawling. What happens if you live in the other side of the suburb? Now you have to drive twice the amount. When most businness are in a central downtown core, with high density (tall buildings), it creates critical mass for mass transit. Spreading out everywhere will be even worse.

Expensive oil is more likely to spur telecommuting and telepresence than to destroy suburbia. (not to mention the immense pressure it creates to research alternative fuels, which may turn out to be very much cheaper than oil in the long run)

Every expert that weighs in on the future of oil makes me feel more certain the price is going to be back to $30 a bbl in 6 months. Because that's exactly what happened before.

are you serious? you will never see a $30 a barrel ever again. and if they attack Iran you can say hello to $200 a barrel.

I don't like reddit like posts, but this is scary: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/2... http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/04/iran-w...

Not entirely serious, but there are an enormous number of blowhards coming out of the woodwork. And it did happen before.

try, 'hello better public transportation'

as someone who lives in a "suburbia" i'd be more than happy to commute, if there was anything nearing reliable, timely public transport

>try, 'hello better public transportation'

If there's money left for infrastructure. I think America has already missed its chance to build railroads.

I actually still hope the california High Speed Rail will eventually be build. That will creat ecosystems around it's stations, with higher density, that might create the blue print for better urban mass transit.

But the gas prices are not high enough for people to yet make radical chanes. When it reaches $6/gallon, then we will see some significant changes.

As history dictates, great pain and suffering is a catalyct for change. Right now gas prices are not painful enogh, there is not much will regionally, and most people don't know better, for real change to happen.

How about buses? Buses don't require much infrastructure. Also, the cost scales almost linearly with the number of passengers, and they can be easily rerouted depending on demand.

"Within five years, Kunstler says, the "very serious trouble" begins"

Then get that startup off the ground now!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com