Inflation is hurting many!

There are also problems with transportation. Pipelines are running at capacity and an awful lot of petroleum now goes by railway tank car. Then there's refinery capacity. I don't know if Texas has recovered yet from the Big Freeze and some nasty fires.

So...it's complicated.

 

Thing about petroleum is that the stuff is nasty, smelly, flammable, and dangerous right up to its final sale to consumers. You really don't want to live next to an oil well or a refinery or derailed tank car. That makes increasing production difficult unless the area is an unpopulated desert.

 

When I was living in Hobbs, NM the locals told me that the pervasive stink was "the smell of money". True but other than the tax revenue that paid my modest salary, it wasn't the smell of MY money...

 

Consume less. Crazy, huh?

 

Why, that's...that's...Un-American!

 

You guys have suburbs that are cheaper? Another thing we're obviously doing wrong, here in Canada. Ours are priced in the stratosphere! We should learn from this...

 

I doubt most people will drive less because of high gas prices... at least in the USA. I am an "average" American that drives 10,ooo miles per year in a 25 mpg car, at $2.50 a gallon (400 gallons), I spent $1000 in 2020 on autogas. At $5.00 a gallon, I spend $2000 and at $10 a gallon, I will spend $4000. I may have to cut my spending in other areas like dining out but I'm not going to drive less or take the train, bus, etc! I really hope people drive less so I can drive the speed limit during rush hour to get to and from work. BTW, Work = force x distance regardless of price. Perhaps recreational drives will decline?

 

Or electric cars become more common.

 

I lived in the DC area. There was a strong negative correlation between how far from the US Capitol you lived and how much your house cost. The farther away, the cheaper it was. Essentially, people would pay for their houses (in part) with their commutes.

 

Not true in my youth. City centers were nasty violent places and everyone with money (read: white folks) fled to the suburbs leaving poor peopleto their fate. Dystopia. In the last forty years or so that trend has reversed in most big American cities. Now more affluent people (read: mostly young white folks) are gentrifying city cores and bidding housing costs way up. This forces poorer people to move out if they can or become homeless if they can't. Either way, they're left to their fate.

 

Tell you what, Johann...compare rents between Central Vancouver and the inland suburbs and I'll bet you will find the same thing. Vancouver itself is at least as pricey as Seattle and might even rival San Francisco, the most expensive city in the United States for housing. Yes, I'm including New York and Honolulu.

 

San Francisco...used to be such a lovely city, too. Really, the place was a perfect jewel. Not anymore.

 

I live in a run-down central section of my city, because it's cheap. Cheap for me, because I've had rent control to protect me for 17 years. It's the only thing that makes it cheap. Other tenants here pay double what I do. Also, I live here because I was able to give up my car 25 years ago and still get to places I needed, by bus. It's better in the suburbs by far - but rents are even more than what the average is here.

I have my experience to go by - you have yours. It's not the same. My son and his wife have a nice house in the suburbs - their third house, built for them 15 years ago. Today, it's worth four times the original cost. I know how it works around here.

 

Oh, of course! It does vary. You can buy a very, very cheap house in Detroit. Grosse Pointe not so much.

 

Sometimes a city will simply disappear. East St. Louis IL for example.

 

Atlantis as well. Atlantians probably used air power for their sailboats initially.

 

Oh, Lord! East St. Louis! What a long-running, tragic epic! I'm somewhat familiar with the story. The bankruptcy in '72, the yearly bond defaults, the issuance of "judgment funding bonds" -- financial surrealism. There's a book. https://books.google.ca/books?id=eVVWdDcWkkwC&pg=PA137&lpg=PA137&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

A character in a story I wrote years ago was a 'madam' in 1930 Chicago. Previously she'd held the same position in East St. Louis and prior to that, Natchez MS. Shuggie Arrington - not a nice woman, but I admired her strength and will.

Note: for a while, in the 1870s, prostitution was legalized in East St. Louis. Houses - and the ladies who ran them and those who worked there all had to be licensed.

 

Who told you that? The late Dr. Maxine Klein Asher? *

* She's mentioned in old threads here on DI and there's a Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Asher

She must have been some fun to talk to! I wish I'd had the chance!

 

I'd like to read that story.

ESL peaked at about 86,000 people but has declined to about 18,500 as of 2020. The city is fading away.