Sunday, May 11, 2008

Reaction Trumps Proaction...Again

Flipping around Yahoo News again for signs of the collapse. Discovered that bicycle sales and repairs are up, way up for the year. In this country 40% of car use is for trips under 2 miles. U.S. Americans (remember that Canada and Mexico are also in North America) are being forced to use their cars less. I read that a few intrepid folks are even biking many miles to work and with a cart in tow for the groceries. Of course as energy availability decreases people are going to start asking "hey! Why the hell is everything so far from everything else?!" Human settlements of the future will surely look nothing like the automobile suburban miasma that has coated the land in the latter part of the Twentieth Century.

The changes we are all going to see will be forced upon us. I get a little sick of Peaknicks encouraging the masses to make voluntary and proactive adjustments to their lifestyles. People will abandon their unsustainable lifestyles only on pain of financial ruin. The pain comes from market forces; supply and demand dictate what the masses can and will do. People will continue using the modern built environment till they simply cannot anymore. Bicycles will keep some of the older parts of the suburban buildout viable, but people are going simply to prefer living in traditional urban centers again. Who wants to have to bike ten or twenty miles each way to work every day? Life will center around the downtown main street again and no longer be stupidly scattered among the cul-de-sac subdivisions, malls and office parks.