[vtsnowedin]

To add another Data point.
From a bill in hand. Month's electric bill $85.29 ,daily use 11KWH, Daily cost $2.84
Hot water and cook stove are propane, all the other usual appliances including two window AC units which we only needed to run two days that month. Refrigerator is at least twenty years old but I will keep it as long as it runs. After the fridge I think the Cloths dryer and computer are the biggest drain with the possible exception of a wife that can't seem to ever turn off a light as she leaves the room.
That is perhaps a little pricey as it comes 100% from renewable sources but when it goes out in a storm running the backup generator for just lights and computer/TV costs $15 per day in gasoline alone.

[theluckycountry]

Not all suburbs are doomed, it all boils down to economies of scale. I live in a suburb of a rural town and the tap water comes from a dam 7 km away, the sewage is treated 5km away. There is a lot less energy needed to transport these in other words, a lot lot less than from the suburbs of a city. The same with household waste, and if push comes to shove all the food the town needs to eat can be supplied from a 5km radius, including the Beef. The only real issue will be energy, electricity and fuels, but they can be replaced or mitigated with local solutions such as solar and electric powered vehicles.

My town approaches a village in its structure, and over the millennia when failing city-scapes were abandoned, the people who survived, and could, moved into a village lifestyle.

[Newfie]

Lucky,

Please reminde me where you do live.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'N')ot all suburbs are doomed, it all boils down to economies of scale.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'N')ot all suburbs are doomed, it all boils down to economies of scale.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'L')ucky,

Please reminde me where you do live.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'N')ot all suburbs are doomed, it all boils down to economies of scale.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'N')ot all suburbs are doomed, it all boils down to economies of scale.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '
')Our entire modern way of life, from pharmaceuticals and weed sprays to the manufacture of our cars and roads will have to all but go when the oil goes.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'L')ucky,

Please reminde me where you do live.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'L')ucky,

Please reminde me where you do live.

[vtsnowedin]

I see the suburbs having a new lease on life courtesy of Covid -19. People are abandoning city apartments and moving to the suburbs to work from home and the trend appears to be long lasting. Instead of declining in a low energy environment I see future suburban roof tops covered in solar panels with solar charged electric cars doing the remaining commuter runs.
Many of the oldest suburbs closer to the cities that produced them need to have utility lines replaced and upgraded but that already needed to be done and now the residents will have the income to pay for the work.
Some changes need to be made like allowing retail stores within walking distance of houses instead of square miles of residential only zoning that made daily trips by automobile a necessity but that is just a change in regulation.
In short the demise of suburbia is far from assured.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', '
')Those processes take decades to hundreds of years, the oil depletion crises is playing out now Adam. You have a very poor grasp of all this I am afraid. Have you lost your job yet? Are you semi-retired on the government handouts? What is it, $300 a week to sit on your bum? What will you you do when the stimulus money goes and there is no job for you? That's where this is heading, Massive Job Losses.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'I') see the suburbs having a new lease on life courtesy of Covid -19. People are abandoning city apartments and moving to the suburbs to work from home and the trend appears to be long lasting. Instead of declining in a low energy environment I see future suburban roof tops covered in solar panels with solar charged electric cars doing the remaining commuter runs.
Many of the oldest suburbs closer to the cities that produced them need to have utility lines replaced and upgraded but that already needed to be done and now the residents will have the income to pay for the work.
Some changes need to be made like allowing retail stores within walking distance of houses instead of square miles of residential only zoning that made daily trips by automobile a necessity but that is just a change in regulation.
In short the demise of suburbia is far from assured.

[vtsnowedin]

Actually I don't consider solar panels all that high tech. There are no moving parts or computer chip in each panel and they use the same technology used to power satellites back in the 1950s and 60s. They consist of a gang of solar cells wired together and feeding a DC voltage regulator no more complicated then that in a 1929 Ford model A. then feeding a battery which can be a simple lead acid battery also found in early automobiles.
The amount of roof space in a suburb is considerable and it is conceivable that the whole community including water and waste water pumping and processing, lighting heating or cooling could all be provided by those roof tops or panel covered parking lots. Even the garbage trucks could be solar charged along with the compactor (loader at the landfill.
Now if I were a planner in New Orleans I'd take mile square sections beside the Mississippi and move the houses off (paying the occupants appropriately) and add thirty feet of fill from river dredgings and municipal waste etc. and once allowed to settle sufficiently cap it and replace the houses and other infrastructure building a new suburb well above sea and flood level. Then move on to the next mile block upstream or down.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', ' ')Now if I were a planner in New Orleans I'd take mile square sections beside the Mississippi and move the houses off (paying the occupants appropriately) and add thirty feet of fill from river dredgings and municipal waste etc. and once allowed to settle sufficiently cap it and replace the houses and other infrastructure building a new suburb well above sea and flood level. Then move on to the next mile block upstream or down.

[Newfie]

FWIW
I keep hearing how folks are leaving the cities. And maybe it is generally true.

However in my specific city neighborhood it is NOT true. They are building like crazy and building values are rising.

Why there is this anomaly I do not know. I suspect it may have something to do with the U of Penn/Children’s Hospital complex which seems to grow without end.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', ' ')Now if I were a planner in New Orleans I'd take mile square sections beside the Mississippi and move the houses off (paying the occupants appropriately) and add thirty feet of fill from river dredgings and municipal waste etc. and once allowed to settle sufficiently cap it and replace the houses and other infrastructure building a new suburb well above sea and flood level. Then move on to the next mile block upstream or down.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'F')WIW
I keel hearing how folks are leaving the cities. And maybe it is generally true.

However in my specific city neighborhood it is NOT true. They are building like crazy and building values are rising.

Why there is this anomaly I do not know. I suspect it may have something to do with the U of Penn/Children’s Hospital complex which seems to grow without end.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')
Personally I was never a believer in the "death of Suburbia, everyone moves to the Big Urbanity" model of the future. Just look at human history, we have been building cities for thousands of years.

If you travel to Rome today you can visit the mounds outside the ancient city limits where for generations the slave trash collectors would gather up the broken shards of ceramics and carry them outside the city walls.