Richard Florida: Decline of the Burbs is Not Just About Gas Prices

3:46 PM EDT on July 18, 2008

Via Planetizen, Richard Florida argues the decline in the popularity of
suburbs is not just a product of rising oil prices, but a result of a
new "spatial fix" that is reorganizing how and where people live their
lives. From Florida's column in the Globe and Mail:

What's happening here goes a lot deeper than the end of cheap oil. Weare now passing through the early development of a wholly newgeographic order – what geographers call “the spatial fix” – of whichthe move back toward the city is just one part.
Suburbanization was the spatial fix for the industrial age – thegeographic expression of mass production. Low-cost mortgages, massivehighway systems and suburban infrastructure projects fuelled theindustrial engine of postwar capitalism, propelling demand for cars,appliances and all sorts of industrial goods.
The creative economy is giving rise to a new spatial fix and a verydifferent geography – the contours of which are only now emerging.Rising fuel costs are one thing, but in today's idea-driven economy, it's time costs that really matter.With the constant pressure to be more efficient and to innovate, itmakes little sense to waste countless collective hours commuting. Sothe most efficient and productive regions are the ones in which peopleare thinking and working – not sitting in traffic. And, according todetailed research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman,commuting is among the least enjoyable, if not the single leastenjoyable, of all human activities.

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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