Suburbia

It's often tempting to see (for me at least) to see short-term crises as symptomatic of major change, but as I've noted before I think we are at the beginning of a real change in the American culture as a result of the end of cheap oil. It looks as though high gas prices are triggering the end of the suburban America in which the Baby Boom and subsequent generations have lived our entire lives. It seems possible that 10 or 20 years American cities will look very different from the sprawling middle class suburbs we are used to, with the rich in center cities, the poor occupying the outer ring of abandoned middle class subdivisions, and the various middle class strata arranged in rings between them.