The death of the Suburban dream... (condo, loans, houses)

[Ponderosa]

The rundown rental issue will resolve itself over time. As for the suburbs dying out - baloney! The zeal for the new-urbanism will disappear the moment Junior is born. The appeal of the suburb is universal and enduring to people with families. The people moving downtown are going to be the empty nesters at both ends of the age spectrum. You will see more and more business moving OUT of downtown and into residence/employment centers in the suburbs where their employees want to live - not have to live because of high fuel costs or whatever. Case in point: The Bidwill's development near UOP stadium - that is the model of the future.

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

The rundown rental issue will resolve itself over time. As for the suburbs dying out - baloney! The zeal for the new-urbanism will disappear the moment Junior is born. The appeal of the suburb is universal and enduring to people with families. The people moving downtown are going to be the empty nesters at both ends of the age spectrum. You will see more and more business moving OUT of downtown and into residence/employment centers in the suburbs where their employees want to live - not have to live because of high fuel costs or whatever. Case in point: The Bidwill's development near UOP stadium - that is the model of the future.

Remember the Joker in the deck though: high fuel prices......that alone may cripple at least the outer suburbs like Maricopa, Queen Creek, Buckeye and even parts of Phx just S of Anthem.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by ArizonaBear

Remember the Joker in the deck though: high fuel prices......that alone may cripple at least the outer suburbs like Maricopa, Queen Creek, Buckeye and even parts of Phx (Anthem comes to mind).

Fuel is cheap. We'll get used to this price. All many of us need to do is get more fuel efficient vehicles and we will be back to what we were paying before the price burst. But you do have a point particularly as the fuel costs approach the savings of a cheaper house in the outskirts.

I don't think people in the burbs travel all that much anyway. Remember that post a while back about how far people travel from their homes.? Most replied that they rarely went outside a 30 mile radius for work and much, much smaller for food, entertainment etc. Personally, I haven't been east of Central except when leaving town in years. So even though it's a big sprawling place, most of us live in just a little corner of it.

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Fuel is cheap. We'll get used to this price. All many of us need to do is get more fuel efficient vehicles and we will be back to what we were paying before the price burst. But you do have a point particularly as the fuel costs approach the savings of a cheaper house in the outskirts.

I don't think people in the burbs travel all that much anyway. Remember that post a while back about how far people travel from their homes.? Most replied that they rarely went outside a 30 mile radius for work and much, much smaller for food, entertainment etc. Personally, I haven't been east of Central except when leaving town in years. So even though it's a big sprawling place, most of us live in just a little corner of it.

In other words: a 'long commute' is relative.

If I were to live @ 12th St/Indian School; anything further than the East Valley 101 alignment (Tempe/Mesa border) would be too far------whereas to other folks a 30 mile run one way would be nothing.

Too; in at least my case, running 30 miles in one direction on low traffic density highways would not even faze me......but, hassling with 5 miles of stop and go traffic would annoy me real fast.

[amatrine]

My husband drives an hour and half both ways every day, so fuel is killing us.

We wanted out of the city, then soon after buying the house, the fuel goes up like mad.

Sometimes you can not win for loosing,lol ... My husband does not mind the commute, but now has to find a weekend job just to pay for his fuel, and his car gets 30mpg.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by ArizonaBear

In other words: a 'long commute' is relative.

If I were to live @ 12th St/Indian School; anything further than the East Valley 101 alignment (Tempe/Mesa border) would be too far------whereas to other folks a 30 mile run one way would be nothing.

Too; in at least my case, running 30 miles in one direction on low traffic density highways would not even faze me......but, hassling with 5 miles of stop and go traffic would annoy me real fast.

Yes. People in CA have been doing long commutes for years. I remember a couple of guys from a CA office who were at our location in Phoenix once. They said they commuted 2.5 hours each day one way. 5 hours in the car! But they had to live where they could afford the lifestyle they wanted. They seemed totally envious of my laughably short 30 minutes drive to work.

[LordBalfor]

Well, we are definitely seeing a rebirth of "walkable unbanism" here in the Seattle area - and have been for quite some time (long before the recent run-up in gas prices). Downtown Seattle is BOOMING in regards to new condos - and the trend is even spreading to the various suburban centers around the area, with long-neglected suburban "downtowns" being drastically transformed (for the better in my opinion) with the addition of tons of new housing within the core's themselves.

Ken

[Synergy38]

I don't buy it.. I personally HATE urban living. I feel comfortable being in the outskirts with more privacy.

[HX_Guy]

And I'm the opposite...I find the outskirts so isolating, no contact with anyone really.

[borborygmi]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Fuel is cheap. We'll get used to this price. All many of us need to do is get more fuel efficient vehicles and we will be back to what we were paying before the price burst. But you do have a point particularly as the fuel costs approach the savings of a cheaper house in the outskirts.

I don't think people in the burbs travel all that much anyway. Remember that post a while back about how far people travel from their homes.? Most replied that they rarely went outside a 30 mile radius for work and much, much smaller for food, entertainment etc. Personally, I haven't been east of Central except when leaving town in years. So even though it's a big sprawling place, most of us live in just a little corner of it.

What we need to do is start drilling. Offshore, in our own country, on our soil, right now, before things really get out of control. Trust me, when the economies of India and China really take off in the next decade, we could theoretically see $200, even $300 for a barrel of oil, which would translate to $6 a gallon gas prices for us here, possibly higher. That would absolutely cripple the suburban, car-centric city model here, along with our whole oil-driven economy.

This country needs to become self-reliant and oil-independent, and while I realize that this would be a short term solution to a major long term energy problem, drilling here makes the most sense. In the long term future, we need to develop major alternative energy sources which will eventually make oil obsolete. But in the here and now, the simple truth is that all the resources we need to be energy independent are right here, we just have to be willing and able to go get them.

It's been estimated that there may be more oil reserves right here under our noses than there are even in Saudi Arabia. If we could access and refine them, it's conceivable that the cost of gas here could be less than a dollar a gallon within a decade.

Ideally, I'd love to see the U.S. eventually become major energy exporters ourselves- to places like China and Cuba. We could erase the trade deficit, hike the dollar's value back up, and put OPEC and the other usual suspects in the middle east & South America out of business. How great would it be to watch those miserable SOB's and their economies collapse and burn, probably kill each other off in civil war, and it wouldn't be our problem at all. Now that would be beautiful. You really want to see us win the war in the middle east? That's the way to do it.