The Iron Yuppie

This is an incredibly depressing article:

Could rising gas prices kill the suburbs?

Not, of course, because the suburbs should not die. In fact, the suburbs should die. They are wasteful and annoying. I think you should have three choices of where to live.

1. A) Rural - really rural
2. B) City - really city
3. C) Suburbs where you pay a hefty tax for using up all the resources in such an inefficient way that it hurts A and B above.

However, the reason I'm so depressed about it is because the article questions whether or not rising gas prices are going to end the suburbs. Give me a break! The average person spends about 33% more on gas today than they did a few years ago. Assuming a 15 gallon tank gets filled up 3 times a month, his adds up to around $50 a month more. And this is the reason to leave the suburbs? How about the fact that you're stuck in traffic every day for 10 minutes more each way than if you live that much closer. Even if you have a low paying job of $10/hour, that means you're giving up $50 a month. If you make $50k/year (about $25/hour), you're giving up about $150! And that's being extra generous... according to this, the average commute is 139 hours. Good God!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5245860.stm

Fine, so these savings don't show up in your bank account. I don't know about you, but 10 minutes extra of sleep or watching TV or reading or ANYTHING would be better than sitting in traffic. I guess it just surprises me that people are willing to go so far for a couple of hard dollars when your time is the real casualty in all this.

posted by Iron Yuppie  # 8/15/2006 10:26:00 AM