What effect will higher gas prices have on the next generation of suburbs?
RH: The easy answers would be ‘higher density’ and ‘a growing openness to mass transit.’ But the real question is: when will these effects start to kick in? How high do gas prices have to go before consumers respond? I was born in Britain and go back quite often. Gas (a.k.a. petrol) prices are more than twice as high there as they are here, and I am repeatedly amazed that levels of automobile ownership and usage are almost the same as in Canada. Now they are buying SUVs, which barely fit their roads and parking spaces! I reckon that North American gas prices would have to approach $2 a litre before many people would seriously start to rethink their behaviour. I come back to an earlier point: consumers have to see that there is an alternative, otherwise they will grumble all the way to the pump. * * * Excerpt from Creeping Conformity: How Canada became suburban, 1900-1960: In one important respect the conformity of the corporate suburbs has steadily become more profound. The mass consum
