Will peak oil help rebuild communities?

Last week, Keith Johnson over at the Wall Street Journal’s environmental blog posited the question whether rising fuel costs will force Americans to become more like Europeans in their driving and public transportation habits. Jeff Rubin of the Canadian brokerage CIBC World Markets predicts 10 million fewer cars on American roads by 2012, with half of these cars coming from low income homes with access to public transportation. In another post, Johnson discussed a trend of people moving to save money on gas.

What interests me about these trends and predictions is seeing American society come full circle. I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, and have long heard laments from Baby Boomers about how our suburban lifestyle has been the death of communities. How air conditioning and television has stopped us from knowing our neighbors. How strip malls and big box stores have killed downtowns across the country. How long commutes have eaten into our time together as families. It seems even as people took more and more advantage of comforts and cheap prices, it came at human, resource, and environmental costs.

Is there a silver lining in the decline of oil supplies and the rise of gas prices? Will communities begin to come back together? Will we be able to adjust our public trans infrastructure to support a changed lifestyle?

Far be it for me to be overly optimistic about all of this, but in the age of people text messaging their spouses — both in the same house — a bit of community can’t help but being a good thing. In fact, I reckon that coming together as a community, both locally and globally, will be the only way to make it through our coming environmental and energy challenges.

Now, if only I could get across my 7 x 7 mile city by public transportation in under an hour…

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