Gas Prices Drive Lifestyle Change

Two recent articles are pointing to the same trend – people are choosing sustainable options out of necessity. Gas prices are rising with no ceiling in sight, and it’s initiating noticeable behavioral changes. Past suggestions to practice sustainable lifestyle choices for the most part fell on deaf ears, but when the money starts getting tight, people listen.

In southern California, increasing numbers of residents are moving into urban areas along the light rail line. Citing high costs of commuting by car, cities are becoming more affordable options.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Even in the auto mecca of Southern California, attitudes are changing, and transit-oriented development is gaining traction along subway, light-rail and commuter-train lines serving Los Angeles. In Pasadena, an apartment and retail complex built around the Del Mar light-rail station is doing brisk business. Some 95% of the 347 units are rented, the highest occupancy rate since the building opened two years ago, said Dave Brackett, executive vice president of Archstone, which owns the building.

Treehugger points us to an article by Charles Wheelan, author of Naked Economics that suggests we’ve only seen the beginning of these lifestyle changes – what he calls a “new rationalism”.

Wheelan explains his theory:

there are still a lot more shoes to drop as the result of high oil prices. We’ve only seen the first wave of behavioral changes. If gas prices stay high — and I have every reason to believe they will — then we can expect a series of other social changes that are less obvious and longer term.