Earlier today while walking back from the corner drugstore with my Sunday copy of the Plain Dealer I passed the local coffee shop and overheard (as is my nature when wandering around town) a small group discussing the current rise in gas prices to which one gentleman mentioned that "They" have their foot on our neck and there is nothing that we can do about it.
While one could argue about whether "they" are doing anything or that "they" have a reasonable amount of control for gas prices the more interesting portion of the comment was that we, as a society, are limited in our response to fuel costs. While some may argue (see the Sunday Forum section) that the comparison of European to American fuel prices is an apples to oranges comparison (true, they (Europe as a generalization) have more stringent regulation on emissions, insurance costs, efficiency, infrastructure and pedestrian livability in urban areas) the greater questions is whether a new era of gentrification will be forced upon us as a way to re-centralize urban areas to decrease our dependency on automotive use. By this I mean simply a re-organization of urban centers to create a more symbiotic balance between where we live and where we work.
Poised to capitalize on higher fuel costs are of course inner ring suburbs that rely on the major urban center to provide areas of work and production to balance regions of residential space needed to support them. The concern is that many of these inner ring suburbs are community strongholds that, while perhaps not as strongly intertwined to be considered a proper "ghetto" there is still very strong recognition of the community with its identity. This is the perceived stranglehold. Not that raising fuel costs will directly affect the cost of goods (they will) and services (oh yeah, that is going to be reflected too) but that the affected populace (commuters) are part of communities. They can identify with their community. They have family, friends, favorite places to hang out, shops, libraries, schools, the inferred safety of the familiar. These are not easy things to give up.
Recently I was able to sit in on a studio jury at the Kent State CUDC where the premise of the semester project was an interjection of various community development strategies (theoretically based) in order to re-invigorate the city of Parma, Ohio. Overall many of the projects were based upon an interjection of alien usage (a college, entertainment structures, production facilities) to create a closed loop system that displaces the need for those who live in Parma to be trapped as commuters to Cleveland, instead they have the ability to find sustenance (economic and productive) locally, thereby decreasing dependence and reliance upon the automobile.
If you wanted to you could see the projects displayed at Parmatown Mall.
So in fact, the stranglehold that "they" may have upon us due to rising fuel costs are actually opportunities for communities to turn inward, to strengthen their identity and find reasonable need and direction for attracting businesses. So while there is in some aspects this sense of not having control, there are in others more opportunity to re-invigorate the old town centers, to capitalize on the old main streets by offering greater reasons for people to work and more importantly SHOP local. It will be up to local governments to consider their zoning, consider their infrastructure and their populace in order to support this precipitous swing. The future economy may cause it to be difficult for people to afford to gas up their vehicles and continue the lifestyle of the commuter and if that happens inhabitants of communities will have to weigh what is more important to them. Where they are living or where they are working, either way someone is going to lose. The important part is to plan for when those choices have to be made.
Already the housing market is reflecting the trend of utilizing commuting statistics to reflect perceived housing values. While in general the housing market is in (what some may generously call) a slump, recent studies have shown that housing prices closer to urban centers (Boston and Washington D.C. as primary examples) have remained steady and in fact shown increasing home values while those in "bedroom communities" have found planned speculative development halted due to the housing crisis.
If smaller local communities could develop a self-sustaining business model they may be fortunate enough to draw office or even manufacturing business as a way to shore up the residential properties. What would this result in? Perhaps more concentrated urban centers, possibly with duplicate amenities, that would have to be interconnected in order to share goods and services that could not be geographically isolated. This would mean more efficient infrastructure (rail) and a controlled sprawl technique, centered around a small city model. Imagine more centralized communities, each with their own flavor, easily and quickly connected by rail service that would allow inhabitants to walk or bike to work, spend more time with their family and have a vested interested in their place of business as they would be tied closely to the business's success (it would directly affect the health of the town).
Utopian? Perhaps, but if these communities were close enough together to begin to blend into a band of communities, again based upon centralized infrastructure than perhaps infrastructure costs could be shared and duplicate amenities would not be needed. This may be the direct definition of regionalism on a micro controlled scale. The bigger question is, how do we get the businesses to buy into the communities that most of their workers hail from AND how do we attract more people to live by businesses that are already vested in their communities?
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