Farewell, suburbia?

June 28, 2008 | by Alex Evans | More on Climate and resource scarcity, North America | No comments

First things first: bookmark this link.  It points to the Economics and Strategy page at CIBC World Markets, the Canadian investment bank whose research team brought us the superb brief I linked to a few weeks back, entitled Could Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalisation?  Having checked back a few times since then, it has become clear that (a) a lot of their research is focused on food and energy issues, and (b) all of it is excellent. 

Anyway, in their current weekly StrategEcon briefing note, Jeff Rubin has some thoughts about the oil price - which he now forecasts at $150 next year and $200 the year after that (”recent announcements from OPEC and China won’t be sufficient to hold oil prices in check. The additional 200,000 barrels per day pledged from Saudi Arabia is a pittance compared to the four million barrels per day that depletion will hive off world production this year”.)

What’s really interesting, though, is this little observation:

As gasoline prices climb inexorably, American driving habits are going to have to undergo a massive change, mimicking the driving habits long adopted by Europeans who have faced much higher gas prices. Average miles driven will likely fall by as much as 15%, while the market share of light trucks, SUVs and vans will be literally halved, reversing the trend of the last fifteen years. But the most fundamental, and unprecedented change will be in the number of vehicles on the road.

Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history. By 2012, there should be some 10 million fewer vehicles on American roadways than there are today—a decline that dwarfs all previous adjustments including those during the two OPEC oil shocks. Many of those in the exit lane will be low income Americans from households earning less than $25,000 per year. Incredibly, over 10 million of those American households own more than one car.

Soon they won’t own any.

 And the New York Times last week gave some corroboration on the ground:

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 distant edges of metropolitan areas.

Just off Singing Hills Road, in one of hundreds of two-story homes dotting a former cattle ranch beyond the southern fringes of Denver, Phil Boyle and his family openly wonder if they will have to move close to town to get some relief.

They still revel in the space and quiet that has drawn a steady exodus from American cities toward places like this for more than half a century. Their living room ceiling soars two stories high. A swing-set sways in the breeze in their backyard. Their wrap-around porch looks out over the flat scrub of the high plains to the snow-capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

But life on the edges of suburbia is beginning to feel untenable. Mr. Boyle and his wife must drive nearly an hour to their jobs in the high-tech corridor of southern Denver. With gasoline at more than $4 a gallon, Mr. Boyle recently paid $121 to fill his pickup truck with diesel fuel. In March, the last time he filled his propane tank to heat his spacious house, he paid $566, more than twice the price of 5 years ago.

Though Mr. Boyle finds city life unappealing, it is now up for reconsideration.

 Here’s James Howard Kunstler, prophet of suburbia’s demise, at TED last year:

Related posts

1. Farewell, Detroit
2. Meanwhile, back in the real economy…
3. A fond farewell to Nigel Sheinwald
4. Could soaring oil costs reverse globalisation?
5. From greenwash to cornwash

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