The End of Suburbia and Economic Apocalypse

[lxmoss]

Some valid points however his doom and gloom apocalypse speak is a bit annoying.

 

[gei]

I think this whole "suburbia is dying" trend will itself die off within 5 years. Once these new generation of plug-in electric cars make it to the mass market (go look up the chevrolet volt), people will move back to the suburbs in even bigger swarms than before.

Heck if I could drive anywhere I wanted while paying NO gas whatsoever, I'd be driving a hell of a lot more myself too. I actually plan to get a Volt as soon as it's available (which should be in 2010, as GM keeps insisting).

 

[tempperm]

I think this whole "suburbia is dying" trend will itself die off within 5 years. Once these new generation of plug-in electric cars make it to the mass market (go look up the chevrolet volt), people will move back to the suburbs in even bigger swarms than before.

Heck if I could drive anywhere I wanted while paying NO gas whatsoever, I'd be driving a hell of a lot more myself too. I actually plan to get a Volt as soon as it's available (which should be in 2010, as GM keeps insisting).

maybe...but personally i hate long commutes even in an eco-friendly car

 

[simply Dan]

401 traffic doesn't exactly appeal to me, electric car or not.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I think this whole "suburbia is dying" trend will itself die off within 5 years. Once these new generation of plug-in electric cars make it to the mass market (go look up the chevrolet volt), people will move back to the suburbs in even bigger swarms than before.

Heck if I could drive anywhere I wanted while paying NO gas whatsoever, I'd be driving a hell of a lot more myself too. I actually plan to get a Volt as soon as it's available (which should be in 2010, as GM keeps insisting).

Well, plug-in cars won't address the greater problems of suburbia which is a lack of social cohesion and alienation. Also, as Herbert Muschamp once said, plywood only lasts 40 years; the horrible workmanship of frame housing basically preculdes their gentrification into the kind of well-heeled neighbourhoods that a lot of their pre-war counterparts have achieved. Indeed, we are seeing this growth in poverty in the inner ring suburbs built immediatelty after the second world war. These problems, much more so than high gas prices, are sealing the fate of suburbia.

 

[salvius]

I think this whole "suburbia is dying" trend will itself die off within 5 years. Once these new generation of plug-in electric cars make it to the mass market (go look up the chevrolet volt), people will move back to the suburbs in even bigger swarms than before.

I think this is something that seems to go right over people's heads; a car is not by definition a vehicle that runs on geologically extracted hydrocarbons. In addition to biofuels research (which may or may not come to anything), electric cars are on the cusp of reality. Volt looks promising, but it's likely just a start; still, it's likely to be a nice demonstration. The real problem of electric storage is solvable, and the technology far from being a pie in the sky. The car's not going to die, and gas is far from completely unaffordable as it is. Now, the current climate will affect certain lifestyles, but not nearly to the extent where suburbs are suddenly toast.

Heck if I could drive anywhere I wanted while paying NO gas whatsoever, I'd be driving a hell of a lot more myself too. I actually plan to get a Volt as soon as it's available (which should be in 2010, as GM keeps insisting).

If the future is not the biofuels, but electrics, expect to pay a lot more in licencing and toll fees. Nobody is going to let you drive a car for 'free.'

Well, plug-in cars won't address the greater problems of suburbia which is a lack of social cohesion and alienation.

Hipster, I eschew suburbs like many a young urban planner, but this is not a dictatorship, and I cannot tell people what is a proper way for them to live.

Also, as Herbert Muschamp once said, plywood only lasts 40 years; the horrible workmanship of frame housing basically preculdes their gentrification into the kind of well-heeled neighbourhoods that a lot of their pre-war counterparts have achieved.

New houses with proper repairs can last a long time; furthermore, they can be torn down and built anew. This happens even in our fair city.

Indeed, we are seeing this growth in poverty in the inner ring suburbs built immediatelty after the second world war. These problems, much more so than high gas prices, are sealing the fate of suburbia.

I must point out that the inner suburban decline is far from universal and is much more a result of shifting demographics and fashions; inner suburbs have always been more modest, having been built during the postwar boom, and generally don't offer large envelope sizes that most people today want.

They are also often the refugee of the poor fleeing the inner city gentrification, though this too is far from universal; furthermore, the most at threat in the Canadian context remain the suburbs with numerous apartment block rental properties. Poverty HAS shifted in many large Canadian cities, but this most certainly does not seal the fate of suburbia.

In general, I can't help but feel that there is a certain superiority complex here of the single and yuppie childless couples looking down on families for whom the suburbs were the right choice for a whole host of possible reasons.

Boy, I sound like Are Be.

 

[PukeGreen]

I think this is something that seems to go right over people's heads; a car is not by definition a vehicle that runs on geologically extracted hydrocarbons. In addition to biofuels research (which may or may not come to anything), electric cars are on the cusp of reality.

But cars running on biofuels and electricity don't solve our dependence on oil. They only mask it! Biofuels can only be grown in the vast quantities required if we dump tons of petroleum-based fertilizers on our otherwise dead farmland, and truck the resulting product all over the continent, rendering the energy gains from the whole process very small. Electricity in North America is almost entirely generated by coal-fired plants, which spew more greenhouse gases than cars do. The best alternative for electricity is more nuclear generators, but it will be at least a decade before more of those come online, longer if many people continue to oppose them due to some fairly reasonable fears.

Hipster, I eschew suburbs like many a young urban planner, but this is not a dictatorship, and I cannot tell people what is a proper way for them to live.

It's not about being a "dictatorship" and "telling people" how to live. It's about looking objectively at our lifestyles and having those that choose to use the most resources pay for the true cost of their choices. Yes, you are free to live 100 miles from your workplace in an enormous McMansion and drive a fleet of Lincoln Navigators; but you should have to pay for that privilege, in terms of both money and convenience. Right now that lifestyle is still cheap and convenient due to massive government funding of the highway infrastructure, free parking, low gas taxes, lack of tolls, etc. Meanwhile sustainable car-free living is more expensive and inconvenient due to poor zoning laws that force businesses and jobs away from the homes we live in, as well as chronic underfunding of public transit.

The era of cheap gas that made unsustainable suburban living a "normal" state of being seems to be coming to an end, or at least evolving. Now we have an opportunity to fix some of the mistakes we've made in the past and revise the American/Canadian dream accordingly.

Some valid points however his doom and gloom apocalypse speak is a bit annoying.

To me, the end of suburbia as we know it is actually optimistic, not apocalyptic. I feel that if we play our cards right and stop clinging to outdated ideals of an unsustainable lifestyle we can end up with better, healthier, more sustainable ways of living. To simply ignore all these issues and stick with the status quo until we reach collective economic and environmental ruin is the truly depressing apocalyptic scenario.

 

[Archivist]

I agree strongly with PukeGreen's well elucidated points.

I will add to each of them:

Electric / biofuel cars - How many cars need to be plugged into Ontario's energy grid before it collapses? How expensive will electricity get when this starts to happen? How will Ontario obtain electricity from sources other than fossil fuels? I don't see any of this happening now (except for Nuclear) so the option of plugging in our cars works on a micro scale, but is not currently extensible. And gas prices are currently cheap.

Suburbs - While nothing is going to make suburbia go away quickly, a permanent energy crisis will undermine the current value of properties in the suburbs, so the market itself will render deep burbs increasingly unprofitable and undesirable. Most prefer to buy houses in the burbs because they are affordable, but that "affordability" is being leached away. What will happen to them? I don't know, but I also don't care to see it.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Instead of counting the number of vehicles, we should be counting the number of individuals which are affected by any projects or current situations. For example, to say that the widening of project x will handle y number of vehicles, it should be the z number of individuals so that we can compare it with transit projects.

 

[MisterF]

Electricity in North America is almost entirely generated by coal-fired plants, which spew more greenhouse gases than cars do.

Actually it's the other way around - coal fired power plants are more efficient at generating power than internal combustion engines in cars. A coal power plant powering 1000 electric cars will pollute less than 1000 gas-powered cars. Most of Ontario's power comes from nuclear and hydro anyway.

IElectric / biofuel cars - How many cars need to be plugged into Ontario's energy grid before it collapses? How expensive will electricity get when this starts to happen? How will Ontario obtain electricity from sources other than fossil fuels? I don't see any of this happening now (except for Nuclear) so the option of plugging in our cars works on a micro scale, but is not currently extensible. And gas prices are currently cheap.

True, wide-scale adoption of electric cars will require a lot of new power generation. I could see big new fees in drivers licence fees or plate fees to pay for it all. It can be done though. Electric cars aren't going to replace gas cars overnight. It'll take decades, especially with resistance from oil companies. That should be enough time to build new power plants and come up with ways to make drivers pay for them.

 

[ShonTron]

I think that the inner ring of 905 suburbs, from Oakville through Mississauga and Brampton, and southern York Region, will survive, with some difficulty and adaptation. To varying extents, each are looking at intensifying and have at least the potential for good rail based transit. People will adapt at first by driving less by either taking transit at least for work.

The outer 905 ring will be harder hit. Places like Georgetown, Bolton, Stouffville, Brooklin.

 

[PukeGreen]

Originally Posted by PukeGreen View Post
Electricity in North America is almost entirely generated by coal-fired plants, which spew more greenhouse gases than cars do.

Actually it's the other way around - coal fired power plants are more efficient at generating power than internal combustion engines in cars. A coal power plant powering 1000 electric cars will pollute less than 1000 gas-powered cars. Most of Ontario's power comes from nuclear and hydro anyway.

What you are saying is no doubt true and makes good sense. But I think we are measuring different things...

What I was saying was simply that the total carbon dioxide emissions caused by electricity generation is currently greater than the total carbon dioxide emissions caused by transportation. (As shown on this graph from the EPA: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/co2_human.html#fossil).

My intended point was simply that by switching from gasoline cars to electrical cars, we're only moving our carbon dioxide emissions from one column on the chart to another; and the amount generated to generate electricity is already enormous. I understand your point that the coal-fired plants may produce fewer emissions per car, but it will still be a non-trivial amount. Is it really going to save us? An electric car may be somewhat more efficient than a gas-powered one, but a car that is never produced in the first place is 100% more efficient. Let's make it more practical for Canadians to live without a car, or with only one car per household instead of two or three.

I'm also looking at things from a wider North American perspective, in which case coal fired plants dominate. Ontario has more hydroelectric and nuclear than most states, but we are still connected into the continental grid and buy electricity from those other places when we don't have enough to power our own grid (which happens frequently, and will happen even more frequently if we move all our cars onto the grid as well).

And finally, in a way you are applying a hypothetical future solution (electric cars) to a real immediate crisis that exists today. Car companies have been promising us electric cars for decades, but there is still nothing practical on the market that the average person can go out and purchase. Similar promises of "cleaner" coal plants and more nuclear plants are currently just words on paper, and it will be years and decades until these make any real impact.

In the meantime, the oil and climate crises are already here.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I think that the inner ring of 905 suburbs, from Oakville through Mississauga and Brampton, and southern York Region, will survive, with some difficulty and adaptation. To varying extents, each are looking at intensifying and have at least the potential for good rail based transit. People will adapt at first by driving less by either taking transit at least for work.

The outer 905 ring will be harder hit. Places like Georgetown, Bolton, Stouffville, Brooklin.

That inner ring will do just fine as long as the schools, hospitals, office parks, etc., all stay open, permitting people to keep living there, perhaps living/working closer together over time. We're building a lot of condos downtown but the number is trivial compared to all the people living in the 905...so it's not like they'll have anywhere good to move to. Other than Winnipeg or wherever.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Most prefer to buy houses in the burbs because they are affordable, but that "affordability" is being leached away. What will happen to them? I don't know, but I also don't care to see it.

This is a very important point, and one of the driving forces behind the spectacular growth of new home sales (until recently) in sunbelt cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and much of Florida. Simply put, the housing prices were so cheap that many families could sell their homes in suburban Northeastern or California cities and net the same house for about half the price in the desert. Anecdotally, I would imagine that affordability trumps any other consideration American homebuyers give when they decide to purchase a home and the perceived selling points about suburbia such as safety, a big yard, or other “lifestyle preferences†are much less relevant than many would think.

 

[Archivist]

scarberian's point is well taken, and it's why I disagree with many of the people who predict the end of suburbia. It's not like somehow it is going to be possible or affordable for all the suburban dwellers to move south of Eglinton, so for the next long time there will be people living at some remove from the central core of the city.

How that will pan out for them, I have no idea. I do believe in the shorter term rather than the longer term that houses "out there" will lose some of their value. Beyond that, I find it hard to predict.