My leave-taking has been harder than I expected, and so, in order to make a proper go of it, the plan now for me is the end of today, early tomorrow latest... and then two weeks of internet silence.
Frustrating as it's been (you have no idea) for me, I can't just leave everything unsaid, and yet work's already ramped up, and it's hard to focus. So instead of the lengthy send-ffs I planned, perhaps something a little more quick and dirty.
There was a lot of discussion last week about how the rise in gas prices was (finally) changing behavior, and as a result, would the old notions of "suburban life" get up-ended as well. It was a quaint discussion really (see here and here, for instance), but what interested me was the return of some familiar mindsets: that the suburbs still look a lot like the way my generation remembers from their youth, that "urban renewal" is an ongoing process still subject to familiar debates (about crime and safety, and notions of public transportation, for this discussion, mainly), and that... well, basically the last ten years never happened... or at least, didn't already have profound impacts we're only just starting to understand.
Missing from most of these discussions - I'll say it again - is any sense of "affordable housing". It's housing that's driven a lot of demographic decisions, as new buyers and buyers looking to move up discovered that city centers, and many suburbs, were suddenly priced out of reach (or priced so as to make only the least attractive properties remotely workable). The tradeoff, for years, was the artifically low nature of American gas prices, which allowed for excess consumption and lifestyles that would otherwise have been far less possible.
As gas comes home to roost, what seemed at first to be having no effect turned out to be causing changes that have rippled through our economic downturn in unexpected ways - none more telling, I think, then the decision of the old "big three" automakers to drop leasing as an option for car buyers. That decision, born of the credit crunch, has in one swoop seriously altered the new car market, as many people were upmarket in otherwise unaffordable models because of favorable lease terms.
I can't say I'veoticed massive drops in SUV driving... but out here in suburban central, there's quite a lag. It does seem clear that everything has changed - vacation plans, purchasing decisions, leisure activities. The movie theaters out here have been largely deserted (weekday movie going seems to be out out out), tickets to even the newest popular things hardly impossible to come by. And the newest cars... are, well, cars.
Of course, as gas prices start to fall, who knows what behaviors will stick? I tend to think that as with other recessionary forces, the spike in gas prices have spooked people into behavior changes that may last quite a while. More cars, less SUVs. Less long distance driving. Can that change residential patterns? I doubt it. The housing market's collapse is its own animal at this point, and for now, a purchase is largely theoretical, from what I can tell - either it's not worth trying to sell what you've got, or it's not worth trying to fight for a new mortgage.
More to the point of these "end of suburbia" discussions, the liberals having them suffer as usual from two obvious familiar problems: the lack of challenges to their worldviews (it's a long conversation of people who basically agree), and that liberals continue to fight the last cultural war. The "war to save cities" from wrecking balls, and conservative indifference, is largely over... and we won, sort of. Most cities - especially at their cores, are more vibrant, wealthier, and more successful than they have been in years. Even as the housing crisis evolves, there's a merry "why worry" quality to the continued building of condos and office space. This will all work out... somehow. And we'll build some more light rail!
The point is... the crisis we're in isn't a transportation issue. It's a housing issue, and while gas prices and inflation will have impacts and force behavioral changes, the bigger changes we're experiencing are coming from tectonic shifts in housing, ones that (still) have not become an issue for liberals about how to house working people in ways that are affordable and make sense. It's not - as Red will remind me - that I'm saying we don't also have a problem housing the poorest among us... but this problem has rippled well up the line. And I, for one, remain frustrated by the limited nature of our discussion... and by the deaf and dumb responses of liberal policy-makers who should be far more complete on this topic than they have been, discrete solutions to aspects of a problem, completely losing sight of the big picture unfolding in front of us. And ignoring that, I think, makes all this transportation talk... a lot of wasted gas.
Wait...you're going into your cone of silence before the Convention?
I think you're going to find it hard to remain silent on some of those speeches...I think.
Posted by: jinbaltimore | August 19, 2008 at 06:08 PM