How High Gas Prices Will Affect Suburbia

Posted by: Irvin Dawid

15 May 2006 - 8:00am

Irvine Senior Fellow Joel Kotkin theorizes on the changes that higher energy costs will make to suburban development -- including more telecommuting, more job diversity and cultural attractions, but it will not halt the outmigration from cities.

From the film, "The End of Suburbia" featuring new urbanist guru James Howard Kunstler, to CNN's rating of "best cities" in an oil crisis, high gas prices were thought to doom the suburbs. Joel Kotkin disagrees.

"Ultimately, higher energy prices cannot overcome the realities created by the car-oriented declustered environment in which we now live and work. As Paul Larrousse, director of the National Transit Institute, admits, the option for effective transit use has faded as the nation, and its jobs, have 'spread out.'

"So if we are going to have an increasingly suburban and even exurban future, we need to figure how this can work in a high-cost energy environment. One sensible solution lies in the continuing transformation of suburbs from their old role as commuter bedroom communities into places that offer a larger array of jobs, cultural and commercial opportunities."

Finally, telecommuting will become more common. "Between 1990 and 2000, the number of Americans working full time at home increased by 23 percent to over 4 million. An additional 20 million worked part time at home. Overall, according to the Hudson Institute, telecommuting is growing at about the rate of 15 percent per annum, most of it among the self-employed."

Full Story: Suburbia will survive a gas crunch

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 2006

Somewhere in the middle

Submitted by springfieldmonorail on Tue, 05/16/2006 - 07:20.

It seems that the most likely last use and transportation impacts of rising energy prices over the next 10-15 years will reflect something of the predictions of radicals like Kunstler as well as something of Kotkin's thoughtful rebuttal.

While I certainly don't see the suburbs and their auto-centric requirements losing all viability, I do expect that urban areas, older suburbs, and new mixed-use developments with transit service to have something of a competitive advantage (or at least 'equal footing' from a policy standpoint).

In addition, banking on telecommuting to 'save' the sprawling development pattern seems like a bit of grasping at straws, and I certainly don't see increased job dispersion (i.e. moving the jobs to the people as energy prices rise) as being a likely outcome in most areas (or at least an economically fruitful one). Further dispersion would simply mean more energy consumption, not less, as a given place of employment might move closer to some workers but further from others. If trip origins and destinations are not massed at all in centers, the transportation network would approach perfect inefficiency (with very high costs in terms of congestion, pollution, and energy). It also seems likely that such 'extreme' dispersion would negate the kinds of economic benefits that accrue in agglomeration economies, perhaps weakening the nation's economic competitiveness. But I'm not an economist.

not quite so simple

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Mon, 05/15/2006 - 19:43.

Kotkin insinuates that transit usage dropped during the gas crisis of the 1970s.

But if you look at the peaks and valleys of transit ridership, the truth comes out.

In 1972, only 6.5 billion Americans rode transit.
(See http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1976-06.pdf
Table 1007).

(Kotkin's use of 1970 as a baseline misses this point, because ridership dipped during the early 1970s).

Transit ridership soared during the 1970s, peaking at 8.2 billion in 1980- a ridership increase of 26 percent in just eight years!
(See http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1982_83-06.pdf, Table 1080).

And all of these was happening at a time when (as Kotkin correctly points out) cities were in much worse shape than today due to the crime wave of the 1970s and forced busing.

Play with the numbers a little more...

Submitted by brisbane on Tue, 05/16/2006 - 06:14.

Lewyn,

What *percentage* of the total population rode transit in 1970 compared with 1980? Perhaps taking into account population growth may make the numbers look a bit more like Kotkin's. I have not done it because I am a bit in a rush. Just curious what it would look like. At first glance it still seems that it would be an increase overall.

Please note that you listed your riders in billions. I'm sure you meant millions.

Thanks.