Wed 2 Jul 2008
Imagine some economic/ecological/othertypical disaster strikes before we’re properly able to get out of our current petroleum culture. What might the world look like carless? Who would be worst off? Who would manage best? What unexpected effects might we encounter?
note: other things which likewise run on gas may or may not continue operation in this hypothetical, depending entirely on the preference of the answerer. If you want to tell me about a world sans automobiles, but which still has functional air planes, knock yourself out. If you want to assume all modern petroleum fueled transportation is out, that’s awesome, too.
Posted by shmegegge3 answers so far!
Okay, since there have been no answers, let me take a stab at it.
Suburbs would likely be abandoned in favor of cities. There’d be a lot more cyclists out there and possibly those bike stations where you can take a bike at any time and return it to another station. If there was a more limited supply of gas (rather than complete elimination), there’d be a lot more motorcycles and scooters, and bicycles with mini gas or electric engines. Electric cars or cars powered by alternative fuels like propane might be a lot more popular and the development would likely be prioritized. Also car-sharing services would spread. I expect speed limits would drop with a lot of cyclists and scooters on the road… many scooters top out at 40mph.
I can imagine this phone call: “Hey mom, I’m coming over to visit! Since you live 20 miles away, I should be there on my bicycle in 2 hours!” Of course that’s provided the cyclist didn’t need to stop and there’s not a lot of uphill riding.
I think the opposite of IndigoRain’s scenario would happen. With no petrol, there’s no food transport either so the cities would become pretty much useless for everyday living. I think we’d see wide spread dispersement to smaller, self-sustaining towns surrounded by local farms which grow a variety of crops. It would also be the end of mono-farming.
Or Mad Max, crazy-apocalypse-self-preservation.
I agree with Minifigs. Our cities are already crowded, and pretty sprawling for a no-car scenario. Instead of moving into existing cities we’d spread out, and eventually live closer to our work, family/friends, etc. (This might take a generation or so, because people already live where they live and not *everyone* will want to move.) The better suburbs and existing neighborhoods would become a million little cities. Each one would have its own stores, office buildings, etc.
As it is, I could live in my suburb, as it already has everything I need (grocery stores, other stores, restaurants, delis, etc). What it lacks is enough high paying jobs to support everybody who lives here. So we’d just need some of the law offices, agencies, etc, to move up here from downtown. Because relatively few people live downtown, many of those businesses would have to move out into the new mini cities. Also, there would be more telecommuting. Or people who freelance, like me, and work from home (not knowing what a lot of my clients even look like; the value we place on “face time” is to a large degree artificially created by us).
Commuting would disappear, so our current habits of traveling all over creation to do the things we do would have to change. We’d just stay closer to home.
Hospitals are a problem. Again, my suburb has a good one. Every mini city could support doctor offices and clinics, but they couldn’t all have good specialists and surgeons, etc. That would take a while to perfect. At the beginning, people requiring frequent medical care would have to move close to a hospital. I’m thinking there would be a scramble to build fleets of electric ambulances.
And that’s another thing: electric cars aren’t actually that far off. If we didn’t *have* access to gas, we’d have electric cars almost immediately. So instead of my above scenario, people might just freak out for a while (and some economic crises would occur) but then car companies would start rolling out electric cars and things would get back to normal in a few years. Except our environment would be a lot better off.
I can’t even speak to what would happen to *seriously* rural areas where people live miles from each other. In less extreme small-town scenarios, I *imagine* (again knowing nothing about rural life and hoping she doesn’t offend) things might not change that much. Don’t small-town people already live and work in their towns? Gah, I’m setting myself up for a stoning. ;) Forget it, I’ll just talk about city life instead.