You talk about urban vs. suburban areas. How do you make the distinction?

I live in a suburb of Atlanta. I find it hard to believe that our in-town areas are all that different from the suburbs in the amount of energy use. Our businesses are scattered throughout the metropolitan area, so commuting "downtown" isn't something very many do, unless they work in government offices, one of the downtown hotels, Georgia Tech or Georgia State University. Most of the homes, even very close in, are single family homes, on separate lots. The older homes are probably poorly insulated. Public transportation is iffy, even in the closest locations. Sidewalks are not generally available, so if you do take public transportation, you have to deal with not having sidewalks to walk to the public transit. Also, buses generally don't run on Sundays.

I don't think very many live apartments. If they do, they are probably almost as likely to be living in apartments in the suburbs as the city. Likewise, the percentage of residents using public transportation in the city is likely pretty low. There are buses in the suburbs as well. Using public transportation in either the city or suburbs requires a lot of diligence.

Is your urban model primarily New York City, and a few Eastern cities, or are you thinking about cities that aren't all that city-like?

California is setting the pace with SB 375. If local governments don't respond, the state can come in an set new land use rules. Local government is terrified of state mandates, so it is in their interest to act.

I doubt there is much that can be done about the problem of suburbia from the outside. When suburban living becomes unattractive for enough people then another form of housing will take its place. Just like the car allowed people to not have to live next to the blacks, hispanics, immigrants etc. One of the largest reasons for suburbia was overt and covert racism tightly coupled with keeping up with the the Jones's. Greed and hatred drove the white picket fence era.
The next factor was a real population growth from the baby boomer generation.

And last but not least government policies and banking rules heavily supported this expansion with loans for new homes handed out in a racially biased manner and tilted towards supporting a cartel of bankers and construction companies and large retailers.

As the small towns where gutted and the large cities descended into crime the suburbs actually became relatively better and the car papered over their intrinsic structural problems.

So the end of suburbia will happen when the real underlying support for its existence is overcome by other factors thats racism, greed and and expanding population.

Well the last one is east the baby boomer population is retiring. Generally families are smaller now 2 kids on average and a lot of people defer having children till later in life.

And last but not least the way schools are funded and voting for services has a huge influence but this is secondary and based on the demographic patters but it becomes a driving factor later.

Next as far as rascism population growth is ethnically diverse in most western countries and overt racism has waned.
Certainly its still a big factor but it power is significantly less in the age range of 20-40.

On the infrastructure side I'd say the biggest issue is that the large retailers need to fold I think that peak oil will play a large role here leveling the playing field as cost of transport overrides economies of scale and devaluation of the currency favors local production. This is a big one and probably the hardest to break.
Here the slowing economy will help a lot !

Cornucopians point out all kinds of schemes to save suburbia from EV's to small garden plots but underlying all the discussion I've seen on this board are the basic and intrinsic facts. First generally suburban homeowners are in the top income brackets thus they will be the last to be demand destructed based on oil prices and the first to be able to afford technical solutions to the oil price problem so they are not going to change based on this. Garden plots are a feel good measure and largely irrelevant.

What matters is that Suburbia is a ponzi scheme. Urban housing can readily be sold or rented the housing works quite well in either scenario. Suburban houses are poor chooses for rental units they are expensive. Thus suburbia is very dependent on a steady influx of new suckers buying into the the scheme. Its ownership based. Once alternatives become even slightly more attractive suburbia fails rapidly. Especially given our demographic changes of retiring baby boomers and that many of the potential new suburban home buyers are from "the others" immigrants on minorities people most Americans can't stand to be near. Spiraling fuel costs work indirectly to decrease the purchasing power of those interested in living in suburbia.

The bottom line is suburbia is poised to experience a ever spiraling deflation period as housing prices steadily decline this cannot support the underlying inflationary/longer term debt scheme that props up suburbia thus suburbia will fail.

And last but not least most people who have access to vibrant downtowns recognize that its actually very nice perception will shift as the larger retailers finally lose their advantage and downtowns are revived.

Agree or disagree but shifts and changes in housing patterns town livelyhood etc are based generally on some fairly basic migration patterns driving by some underlying factors. As these change the direction of movement changes the moment this happens the money flows into new directions and its a rapidly self reinforcing situation. If the money starts seriously flowing back into the city centers then that where the people will go.

My opinion is that peak oil again represents a secondary factor in the future of suburbia and just like I think it played a role in popping the housing bubble I think it plays a role in redirecting the flow of people back towards the city cores. Its secondary but omnipresent and it need not force a person into the core itself but if people choose closer on average more often then further out the direction has changed.

Whats funny is I think a force that most people would call a black swan is probably as important as the more obvious factors. Given that the next generation of property owners is racially and ethnically diverse they are going to desire to have stores that cater to their national and dietary backgrounds. These stores generally don't work in a mega-mall concept and they have tight overhead requirements. Certainly some will be in strip malls and they are generally in the poorer parts of town. As the downtowns revive I think we will see these stores and resturants move downtown and concentrate catering to the new diverse ethnic crowd. Thus although strange I think this is probably as important a factor as any that will eventually drive our communites to re-center.

If you look at demographics you see this sort of clustering is VERY common.

Obama announced this morning that he will be jump starting or applying paddles to the economy by spending billions of dollars on roads. At the same time, he has strongly advocated reducing oil dependence and fighting global warming. How many of these roads will just increase sprawl? How many of these roads won't exacerbate dependence upon the auto? Yes, we are in a crisis, but this is not the time to fund roads that make it even more difficult to deal with oil dependence and will encourage people to use their automobile. This will be one of the first things he does as President. I find that appalling unless his team plans to only pick roads with the least negative impact on oil and carbon emissions.

We are in an economic crisis and, in dealing with that crisis, should spend that money consistent with problems that will be with us long after this crisis is over. Of course, there are those who think that this is more part of the beginning of the long emergency rather than just the typical cyclical recession. Regardless, we need to be thinking forward ten, twenty, a hundred years rather than just the next election cycle. I am afraid this may not be change we can believe in. I think it may be part of the same old business as usual approach to economic problems. I hope I am wrong.

What about the future home buyers?

Families with small children, the traditional target market, will decline greatly as a share of homebuyers. Baby boomers, empty nesters, will dominate. There is plenty of unsold homes to meet demand for detached, single family so few additional will be built. New construction will shift to walkable and multi-unit.

Ask the guys at Toll Bros.

One of the reasons for the move to detached housing not mentioned here, which is obvious to anyone who has lived in old terraced, semi-detached houses or flats in older buildings, is noise. The structures transfer noise usually the deeper notes.

My neighbour in a house I owned years ago had the misfortune to have his living room on the otherside of the wall from our toilet! At the very least he could hear the flush.

Noise generated by others can be stressful.

From my limited experience of US towns I would say the first thing you need to concentrate on is pavements or sidewalks, even in tourist areas they can be terrible. All the europeans go out for a walk in the evenings but after the first night you realise there is no point and get in the car for 300 yards.

In retail parks you cannot walk from unit to unit without a machete to beat back the bushes and the roads in the US are so wide you need to install pedastrian refuges in the middle of the roads. Start with simple changes because they are cheap but can have big affects.

People will respond to cost. An increase in electricity prices would cause people to balance R-60 insulation and U-0.18 windows against an extra 500 sq ft of mcmansion space.

An announcement that the federal gas tax would be increasing by $0.0x per month for the next 20 years would establish the same mindset in housing and transport.

Environmentally friendly features also were important, cited by 90 percent of buyers.

I'm sure this is what they told the surveyors to make themselves feel better. In reality they spent the extra money on countertops and cabinets while settling for the SEER-13 air conditioner.

I believe the United States has a window of opportunity to reap environmental, economic, and national security benefits from a multiyear tax on gasoline. I understand that in the midst of this recession we are trying to pump money into the economy to stimulate investment and employment and taxing people seems to be counterintuitive. But there are so many benefits to this action and the political context may never be as favorable as right now.

Despite the severe economic downturn that Americans are experiencing, one can almost sense the collective sigh of relief on America’s roadways. When gasoline hit $4.09 per gallon nationally in early July, Americans could probably never imagine that we would currently have gasoline prices under $2 per gallon. Yet, many people correctly realize that the current decline in gasoline prices is only temporary.

Even though the entire world will experience some form of an economic slowdown, global economic activity will eventually pick up led by the emerging economies in Asia and Latin America. Their thirst for oil and gasoline will only exert upward pressure on crude oil prices and eventually our increasing reliance on imported oil will make us vulnerable again.

As a society, if we were willing to look ahead and sacrifice for the future, we would support a gradual, multiyear increase in federal gasoline taxes. An increase of 10 cents per year for ten years seems affordable with some of the revenues going into the highway trust fund for the repair of roads and bridges and some used to create an alternative energy trust fund to finance wind, solar, or even help automakers produce compressed natural gas vehicles. Congress could make sure that many alternatives receive funding. This way, competition would keep a lid on price increases for any one alternative. We could distribute the money to the states (maybe each state should get the same percentage revenue it generates in gas tax collections) and let them decide which type of alternative energy source makes sense for that state.

Imagine the benefits of extra billions in capital every year! Employment in alternative energy industries would soar. We would reduce our “carbon footprint” significantly. We would more steadily pressure Russia, Iran, and Venezuela to avoid risky foreign adventures. In fact, speculators would stay out of the oil markets knowing the world’s largest oil consumer was determined to lower its demand. In this way wholesale oil prices would remain lower and we would feel less impact from the increased taxes.

We probably should initially exempt diesel fuel from the new taxes because of its impact on truck drivers and the cost of basic goods like food. Using some of the new tax revenues to support a new trucking fleet based on compressed natural gas, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is more widely available domestically, would further enhance employment and energy security. We could phase in the tax on diesel more slowly.

Finally, for those who chant “drill, baby, drill,” and think that domestic offshore drilling is the answer to our problems, how many oil companies are going to employ the capital needed to drill in deepwater and other expensive, hard-to-reach fields with gasoline under $2 per gallon? Many unconventional oil projects from Canada to Asia and Africa have been postponed in the last six months due to lower oil prices Do you think Americans are going to buy American-made small cars with gasoline under $2 per gallon. What are the prospects for a return on the bailout of the auto companies under these circumstances? It would be rather foolish of us to bail out the auto companies only to have Americans shun fuel-efficient cars because of low gasoline prices.

Now is a very propitious time to enact this measure. A very large stimulus package is about to get passed and there is an urgency about improving the economy. Why not enact a multiyear gas tax as part of a package? It could be sold as part of a down payment on paying off the debt from the stimulus and a gasoline tax would subsidize the types of spending going into the stimulus. Americans would hardly notice a small increase in the gasoline tax at this point, especially if it took effect on January 1, 2010 when the economy should be more stable. Are we going to wait until the economy starts growing again and the urgency is gone and the dramatic decrease in gasoline prices has worn off?

The big question is whether America is up to the task. The new administration will have to act decisively and creatively to avoid a severe recession in 2009. Similarly, will we support bold and innovative ideas to secure our energy future? Will we have the attention span to “keep our eye on the ball” now that gasoline prices are much lower? Will we be smart and start to wean ourselves more aggressively away from an oil-dependent transportation system? Or will we wait until the next run-up in oil and gasoline prices and then whine and complain when it is clear we have very little control over our destiny and we are even more vulnerable to OPEC and Russia?

I have to Strongy Agree that the only market based way to make changes in land use and improve our imports situation is with oil related taxes, particularly a fuel tax.

We have an excellent opportunity to implement an incremental energy tax while oil prices are low. And the really cool thing is: "If energy taxes are sucessful, they will keep oil prices low for some time to come!" Even in the face of growing world demand and shrinking supply.

Economically speaking I don't believe we have any other choice. An energy tax would reduce suburban sprawl, force auto manufacturers to provide higher milage vehicles, force builders to build more energy efficient homes an offices. All just in time hopefully to weather the relentless onslaught of growing energy costs when oil demand significantly exceeds supply.

How can we fairly do this? Take the Fuel Tax for instance: A Quarter a Quarter. Raise the fuel tax 25 cents every 3 months for at least the next 5 years. Offset these increases by corresponding cuts in the income tax for everyone. For low income earners, additionally subsidize the social security and medicaid taxes in order to prevent the Quarter a Quarter plan from being too regressive. Also, divert a good chunk of this new revenue toward more expansive mass transit. More runs more often and with a wider reach. No one will use a mass transit system that doesn't provide a means of getting to a large percentage of the places folks need to get to.

I believe this is possible and will be very good for the country. How to convince others this is so seems daunting.