Automobile-dependent real estate and jobs
invite response
2010 Jun 6, 3:51am 35,422 views 125 comments
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Stupidly sell it to us? Is it stupid to sell a commodity if you pay $100/barrel for it when it costs $20-30 to produce? Maybe we’re the stupid ones for not taking advantage if we have such huge natural reserves, which doesn’t seem to fit with the facts.
Guess how much our oil will be worth when there's hardly any left? Plus, you always want a lot of oil in case something were to happen that would halt trading, like a world war. We pay a premium now for both security and for a future monopoly.
Guess how much our oil will be worth when there’s hardly any left?
Please. If it made economic sense for Exxon to sell more domestic oil, they would be doing it. The fact is that we can't produce that much more under current conditions, and it has very little to do with security. Nice trolling, sir.
Guess how much our oil will be worth when there’s hardly any left? Plus, you always want a lot of oil in case something were to happen that would halt trading, like a world war. We pay a premium now for both security and for a future monopoly.
No one could be that clueless about oil production, could they?
HousingWatcher
2011 May 28, 8:20am
"The fact is that we can’t produce that much more under current conditions, and it has very little to do with security."
That is complete nonsense.
Damn.
I drove past a filling station near my home with a sign showing 4.00.9 per gallon of 87 octane, on my way to Arco station with $3.89.9 per gallon. My running fuel expense is up to $349 for the past thirty days. That’s for three drivers, includes a Prius and a natural gas Honda ($2.37 per gallon on this morning’s fillup), no commuting outside of our city, and one commuter who commutes on public transit instead of driving… and it added up to $349 just for fuel for the past 30 days.
Damn.Today a week later the price was up to $4.05.9 at the same Chevron. A regressive tax on people who must drive to work for their jobs, at a time when wages are stagnant. Sure is what it feels like.
I don't see the big deal. When I started driving I got about 15 highway MPG, spent $1.10 a gallon in nominal dollars or $2.04 in 2012 dollars, and was spending $0.136 per mile in current dollars. My current car gets 29 highway MPG, gas is $4, and I'm spending $0.138 per mile.
That's business as usual.
We chose a small home centrally located for work, bike a lot, and in the last 30 days spent $52 on gas for my wife and I.
The third one cannot use public transit, but that commute is only about 15 miles roundtrip (bicycling is not really practical as the commute includes driving over some very substantial hills- in the MidWest they'd probably call it a mountain.)
One week I rode 418 miles from Grand Junction, CO to Golden, CO with 30,000 feet of climbing over real mountains between them. It felt great.
5 x 15 miles = 75 total in a week is not a big deal even with some real mountains in the middle.
joshuatrio
2012 Sep 4, 1:09am
The third one cannot use public transit, but that commute is only about 15 miles roundtrip (bicycling is not really practical as the commute includes driving over some very substantial hills- in the MidWest they'd probably call it a mountain.)
One week I rode 418 miles from Grand Junction, CO to Golden, CO with 30,000 feet of climbing over real mountains between them. It felt great.
5 x 15 miles = 75 total in a week is not a big deal even with some real mountains in the middle.
+1.
My roundtrip bike commute is about 17 miles (short way), and 23 the long way. I do this minimum 3 days a week. Hills/mountains and all.
Even if you don't ride every day, start with 1-2 days a week, and gradually build up. It's hard, but once you get in the habit, you'll never want to be back in your car again.
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I'm reading a fascinating book -- The High Cost of Free Parking, by Donald Shoup -- which describes the enormous social costs paid by Americans for the "tradition" of individual automobile drivers not having to pay to park their cars. Rather, the costs of maintaining parking spaces are bundled into the prices off the goods we buy, which is not only heartlessly unfair to those who can't drive automobiles, but also creates a tendency for society to be built at automobile-scale, meaning that even people who have no particular desire to drive cars find themselves using their autos just to get to the post office or drugstore because there's no cost to parking there, and things are farther away than they should be.
This got me to wondering: what percentage of US residential real estate is automobile-dependent?
How about jobs? It wouldn't surprise me if more than half the jobs in the US virtually required an automobile in order to commute there.
Are people who can't drive automobiles one of the most under-recognized discriminated-against minorities in the US today? How many communities and jobs are effectively closed off to them?
(I myself once had a job where, for no rational reason that anyone could think of, all employees were required to have valid driver's licenses. At one point it was discovered that I didn't have one, and the fact that I couldn't see well enough to drive a car wasn't a valid excuse. This from a company that insists that it doesn't discriminate based on religion, race, handicap, etc., etc.!)
There are huge ex-urban communities that seem to be precariously dependent on the continuing supply of reasonably-priced gasoline.
Those of you who live in these communities, how do you cope when you have no car? Are you worried about your investment collapsing if (when) oil ever goes sky-high again? Did anyone choose a non-car-dependent neighborhood with a view towards how things might be in 20-30 years?
A "Whites Only" community or place of employment would be looked on with horror by any conscientious person, yet "all employees must have an automobile" -- the equivalent of "No Visually Impaired" -- is perfectly legal and unremarkable.
It's something that surprised me when I go back to the US. Americans are basically compassionate and will almost always express sympathy with minorities who face discrimination, and support laws to help them live and work without hassles. The one exception is automobiles -- nobody seems to care that so many homes and jobs are dependent on them. If you can't drive a car, have you had trouble finding a community where you could buy/rent a home and commute to work without problems?
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