Paul Krugman, writing from Berlin, says that Europeans have a lot to teach Americans about how to live with permanently high gas prices. Dense urban areas served by easy to use and effective public transportation is the way to go. But it's going to be very hard for us to make the transition:
Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon.Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.
And there are, as always in America, the issues of race and class. Despite the gentrification that has taken place in some inner cities, and the plunge in national crime rates to levels not seen in decades, it will be hard to shake the longstanding American association of higher-density living with poverty and personal danger.
Still, if we’re heading for a prolonged era of scarce, expensive oil, Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.
It's one thing to say, "We need to start living like Europeans," and another thing to do it. I've seen the price of my house go way up in the past few years, even with the real estate bubble collapse, because I live close to downtown, and bought just before the neighborhood started to take off. I expect this will continue as people start migrating back in from the suburbs. Good for me, I guess, but what about the vast majority of suburbanites who can't afford to make that move, even if they wanted to? How are we going to make the shift over to the kind of built landscape that's not as dependent on cars? You can't put in light rail overnight; that process takes years.
This is going to be a bumpy ride.
UPDATE: I totally forgot that I'd been meaning to blog about the clash over peak oil between Jim Manzi at the Corner, and Georgetown's Patrick Deneen. Concern over peak oil and its effect on the way we live is a basic theme of Deneen's (excellent) blogging. Manzi had this to say about Deneen and peak oil. Excerpt:
Crude oil production will reach a maximum at some point in the future. I don’t know when that will happen, and the record of those who have tried to forecast this not been very good over the past 70 years or so. When that happens, the price will probably rise. We will develop technological alternatives and find substitute fuels. It’s not time to start burying Krugerrands in the backyard.
To which Deneen replied -- and the excerpt below does not do justice to his full posting, which you can and should read here -- that the radical implications of the end of cheap oil for a country like ours, that's built its entire infrastructure around the idea that oil will always be abundant and affordable, means that no sensible conservative can possibly say, "Let the future take care of it.":
Manzi suggests that we can wait until the last possible moment - when peak oil is upon us, which we will not know until we can compile several years of data about worldwide oil production - and then begin to make adjustments. However, if we KNOW it will be upon us at some point - and many reputable geologists believe it will be soon, soon, but regardless, it will come - then shouldn't we use whatever energy bounty we have now to prepare for that eventuality?[snip]
In short, we will need to invest huge sums to prepare for a way of life that will be significantly different than the way we live now. And people like Manzi are saying, "we don't know WHEN it will happen, so don't sweat it." What we will find is that once we begin to sweat, we won't have the means - the energy and the attendant funds - to change very much. The future will suffer as a result of our profligacy and unwillingness to act responsibly.
I'll say it again - it amazes me that we have come to a pass in this nation's history when someone like Manzi would be called a "conservative." To be oblivious of the implications of our current actions in the name of an ever better future is the hallmark of progressive liberalism.
Oh, snap.
UPDATE.2: Jim Manzi's response, at The American Scene. I wish Reihan would write a song about peak oil hysteria. I mean, who doesn't love "I've Been Burgled"? But look, even the classics get old.
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MZ Forrest: I doubt you'll see the continued outflow of jobs to the suburbs. There are two variables in particular, the cost of moving and the cost of working. The first factor tends to limit the ability to attract lower end workers into a market. The second factor effects the sustainable wage. At the lower end of the scale this becomes more interesting. ...
This is a long way to get to the point that the urban environment may be the only place where it makes sense for lower and middle dual income households.
Where I live, there has been a great outflow of jobs from the "inner city" to industrial parks, etc. in the far-out suburbs, even across county lines to formerly-rural, now booming-suburban counties. Most of these jobs are *not* aimed at lower-wage workers, but instead are technology, business, banking, finance, where most of the workers are highly skilled (and well-paid.)
These workers *already* live in these suburbs; drawn by less expensive (and larger) houses; good schools; what they perceive as a more "small town," less "urban" life. The companies are just moving to where the workers are. This is the reality of exurban sprawl.
America, of course, is much, much bigger than most European countries and our suburban lifestyle has pretty much hooked us to our cars. But I'm guessing we're going to have to do something about that if the price of fuel keeps going up. And to be fair, some very innovative architectural projects are being undertaken to develop communities that are charming and viable where people will actually learn again what it is to live in a "neighborhood" setting. The University of Notre Dame is engaging in a project like this.
As Robert Putnam and others have shown, cultural diversity is destructive of community. So, politically incorrect though it is to say, I'm skeptical that these close knit communities are sustainable or replicable on a large scale in a "multicultural" society.
At a minimum, however, any New Urbanist/close knit neighborhood must meet three threshhold criteria: (1) no significant crime problem, (2) excellent schools, (3) affordable to a middle/working class family with kids. Falling short on any one of those criteria means the community isn't viable for ordinary people with kids at home, no matter what the price of gas is or how wonderful the transit system is.
Actually, rather large areas of Europe WERE built from scratch. Some of our readers forget that we carpet-bombed vast swathes of German civilian cities and villages during World War II. Though they don't really begrudge us the fact, especially since we financed rebuilding, it is worth remembering. Many of those rustic quaint buildings are actually fairly new, at least above their foundations.
It is true that Europe's scale is smaller. We can't replicate that, our density is simply lower. What we can do over time is collapse large suburban outposts and even collections of small towns into more concentrated "villages" with walkable grocery stores and health clinics and other amenities. If this massive oil collapse hits us I think many of those McMansion lots out there will remain uninhabited anyway - they should be converted to walking trails, gardens, farm fields, grocery stores, and public squares. You might still have to drive to and from work. But if you had everything you needed right there, and shared a minibus to go to work in the morning, it'd still be workable.
Christine, you described the European village lifestyle perfectly. The villages really are idyllic - all the country beauty you could ask for, on a walkable scale. And in general folks are much healthier for walking and the economy's much better off for being more localized (ie they grow their food in those pretty fields a stone's throw from the village.) The pace of things is generally more relaxed - you put in your time at work, then you come home and garden and cook and eat together and breathe and watch the sun go down.
It IS affordable - but you have to realize, these people are not paying for education or health care (well, of course they are, in taxes, but the cost is spread out over a lifetime instead of concentrated around a medical crisis for example,) and those who do not have cars (a perfectly pragmatic choice) are also not paying vehicle maintenance, car payments, or insurance. Many own their own homes outright, but savings rates are higher than ours regardless.
Is their system perfect? Of course not! Europe has its own troubles, such as integrating immigrants, a higher unemployment rate, and an aging demographic. But it seems more likely to weather an oil crisis gracefully, at least. Also they have guaranteed four weeks of paid vacation. There is something to be said for THAT, even if their system is not fully transferable to the U.S.
Oil futures are now way more expensive than the current spot price.
Ok, Occam's Razor time, people. Curtain #1, Peak Oil? Or a simple explanation behind Curtain #2? This situation has "asset bubble" written all over it, especially now when we have all this conventional wisdom being poured forth by pundits about how we have to rebuild our cities. Remember when the internet was going to change everything?
Here's another twist to categorize under "my life is a soap opera." My mother just had a seizure. No idea why, yet, she just got out of the ER and is due to see a neurologist later in the week. In the meantime, and possibly for a very long time to come, she is banned for driving. She is fortunate that she has family, and friends, and that Little Rock, Arkansas has some semblance of a public bus system - it won't get everywhere, but it'll get you around. Still, can you imagine being told tomorrow you may no longer drive? It will have a huge impact on her life - getting to work will take creativity, and if her friends are late, she will be late. She's going to have to curtail my kid brother's after-school activities.
Well, say another prayer for her and for us. Hopefully she is okay. As much as I'd like to leave Iraq early - I don't want it to be because my mother is not able to care for herself or for my little brother. He's the one I'm worried about, of course...
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