So Long Suburbia??

Author James Kunstler says the end of the Automotive Age is near, along with all the at dependent on it. From Business Week:

The suburbs were largely products of industrialism. We had a huge supply of oil and cheap undeveloped land, and we decided to become a happy, motoring utopia. It had many practical benefits. The trouble is after a while it became a cartoon
of country living. Cheap oil is what made suburbia possible. But we'll run into problems with spot shortages. As we get into trouble with these supplies, our economy will suffer. Major instabilities in the system will present themselves much sooner than we are led to believe. And by that I mean the way we
produce food, the way we conduct commerce, and the way we move around.

The rise and fall of oil production is asymmetrical. In other words, it'll be a steeper, rockier tumble down than the steady increase going up. My own sense of things is that we will be in very serious trouble inside of five years. I get people who come up to the podium after a speaking engagement to tell me they've just gotten a Prius, expecting brownie points. It's not that we're driving the wrong cars. It's that we're driving cars of any size, incessantly.

Virtually anything organized on a grand scale is liable to fall into trouble—government, finance, corporate enterprise, agribusiness, schools. Our gigantic metroplex cities will prove to be inconsistent with the energy diet of our future. I think our smaller cities and towns will be reactivated. We are going to be a far less affluent society.

This sounds ominous, but is consistent with what many have been saying for some time. Imagine a week or a month of shortages at the pump. The oil is still flowing, but not as quickly as we expect. Spot shortages in Niagara will have the same effect as everywhere else.

• People will stop buying anything but the essentials. They will stop travelling (goodbye Niagara Falls).
• They will not be eating out as much.
• Big ticket items, homes, cars, etc, will simply crawl to a halt until there is some clarity in the market.

When it become clear that the shortages are not predictable, unnecessary travel will be a thing of the past for most people. Buses, trains, (not airplanes) will be in demand. Home close to city centres will be in demand. Prices for suburban homes will be in decline.