By The Editors
Believe it or not, smaller cities and towns like Lancaster actually may end up benefiting from today's high gasoline prices.
That's one conclusion to be drawn from comments by noted author James Kunstler, an outspoken critic of suburbia.
In a recent interview with BusinessWeek, Kunstler says rising gasoline prices and a dwindling supply of oil will force planners to rethink suburban sprawl, bringing an end to strip malls, big-box stores and, as the magazine wrote, "other trappings of the automotive era."
Oil wells are running dry and the era of cheap fuel is over, Kunstler told the magazine.
"Cheap oil is what made suburbia possible. But we'll run into problems with spot (gas) shortages. As we get into trouble with these supplies, our economy will suffer," Kunstler told the magazine.
These instabilities will affect "the way we produce food, the way we conduct commerce and the way we move around," he says.
"Our gigantic metroplex cities (a metroplex is defined as a sprawling metropolitan area, often combining two major cities, i.e., Dallas-Fort Worth) will prove to be inconsistent with the energy diet of our future. I think our smaller cities and towns will be reactivated," Kunstler says, adding "We are going to be a far less affluent society."
The result? A return to smaller cities and towns centered around a retail hub &tstr; not unlike the Lancaster of years gone by.
Kunstler's supposition seems to be the silver lining in the cloud above high fuel prices, but the transition to this "new paradigm" will be painful, he says.
"The rise and fall of oil production is asymmetrical. In other words, it'll be a steeper, rockier tumble down than the steady increase going up. My own sense of things is that we will be in very serious trouble inside of five years," he told BusinessWeek.
Kunstler says cutting back on gas consumption, such as driving more fuel-efficient cars will not cushion the fall.
"It's not that we're driving the wrong cars. It's that we're driving cars of any size, incessantly," he told the magazine.
Nor will the increased use of biofuels help. Indeed, the performance of alternative fuels will disappoint, he predicts.
"We certainly aren't going to run Wal-Mart, Disney World and the highway system on any combination of solar, wind, nuclear, ethanol, biodiesel or used french-fry oil," he says.
Kunstler, who resides in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. , pop. 26,187 &tstr; about half the size of Lancaster &tstr; calls suburbia "the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known."
He has no formal training on such matters, yet his writings have become standard reading in architecture and urban-planning courses.
Kunstler has ventured into other areas of prognostication, sometimes with disappointing results. He predicted a technological Armageddon after Y2K. Didn't happen. He predicted the Dow would crash to 4,000 by the end of 2006. Didn't happen. (Actually, the Dow closed that year at 12,500.)
But if what Kunstler says about smaller cities and towns ends up being true, Lancaster could see a dramatic renaissance in city life in the not-to-distant future, one with exciting opportunities as well as difficult challenges.
This underscores the fact that the decisions Lancaster makes today about its growth and development could well impact the city's future for generations to come.
