The best part of living car-free in New York City is that rising gas prices are largely irrelevant. Okay, I’m intelligent enough to know that even if I don’t own a car and don’t have to fill my gas tank every week, rising gas prices do affect the cost of everything I buy. However, the impact of these indirect cost increases is much less than if I was completely dependent on a car to get around.
It’s unfortunate that a large majority of American cities were designed around the assumption that the cost of transportation is extremely low. However, as gas prices are increasing, the impact of burning fossil fuels is potentially causing global climate change and mass production of “clean” technologies is still decades away, people will have to make difficult decisions. A lot of people are attached to the idea of having their own single-family home with a two car garage and a large backyard but is that ideal sustainable?
What would it look like if the US consisted of twenty densely-populated, car-free metropolises that were all linked by high-speed rail? One could argue that this is what Europe is; I think this is one reason why I’m drawn to Europe. I’m afraid that the American ideal of “bigger is better” could eventually be its downfall.
Comments 1
I think that you will come to understand the impact of expensive to non-existant oil along with the rest of us. Oil is everything, including the food we eat. Oil puts nitrogen in the soil, yielding exorbinant crops that feeds an overpopulated world. Most of our food is imported now as we have switched to a global culture, depending on other countries where once we fed ourselves.
Posted 30 May 2008 at 9:08 am ¶Post a Comment