If you want to get depressed in a hurry (doesn’t everybody?) you should go out and rent the documentary “The End Of Suburbia”. This happy little film discusses the inevitable downfall of our society due to the decreasing availability of oil.
We all know about this and are aware of the many obvious costs of our oil gluttony: war, global warming, environment depletion. The doc discussese these issues in detail but the key element discussed which is described by the title is how this is will affect our day-to-day lives. With our exploitation of oil we have created the suburbia that is seen today and when the oil runs out will dramatically change the landscape of these environments.
The dwellers of suburbia by definition are required to drive their vehicle many miles for virtually all their needs. When the oil runs out, these suburbs will become the new ‘slums’ or become extinct as people move closer together as before the big boom in the 60’s. Alternatively, the slums will adapt and re-adjust to small communities that have the needs within walking distance. But there will be a cost to this: Many of these ‘McMansions’ as they are called by the documentary will become quasi-apartment buildings, very similar to what is seen in inner-city suburbs today.
Not to bore you or put myself into a deeper state of depression, I’ll skip the finer points and wrap up with some points that are important to me:
– how will the oil depletion affect the value of my home in the future? We live in an older suburb on the outskirts of the city. But it is located within a fairly self-supporting village with other small towns and villages within a 5 kilometer radius. Will the future see an increase or decrease in value? What services need to exist in the community to become even more self-sufficient and thus worthwhile to live in the community? Given that driving may become overly-expensive, how attractive is our community?
– To answer the above, we need to also think about what type of work people will be doing in 10, 20, 30 or 40 years from now? Our local metropolis is fairly diverse (several colleges, universities, factories, etc.) but has become prevalently a technology centre. What value will these jobs have down the road? How expensive will it be to drive into these jobs from outside of the city? What will I be doing?
– These questions will certainly drive the path we take whenever we evaluate our place of living, whether we should think about moving and to where we should be moving. And this evaluation should be ongoing along with a healthy (but not paranoid) awareness of housing trends and other indicators that provide insight into the future (cost of oil, US invasions into other oil rich countries, that sort of thing).
– Wherever we live, it’ll someday need to be a walkable, smart growth community. Already, subdivisions are being built to accommodate this and they are selling at a monster premium.
The doc was a little over the top and most likely produced by conspiracy theorists, but when reviewed rationally there was good discussion within the film and some value to take away from it.