How High Gas Prices Will Affect Suburbia

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."