While July 2008 looked relatively normal in terms of Fourth of July celebrations and hot weather, $4 per gallon gas put a damper on that other summertime staple: the family road trip.
As you might imagine, we had a lot to say about that gas thing… but didn’t take a vacation from covering a wide range of topics.
July 2008
By Alex Felsinger •
December 16, 2008
Last Friday a California Superior Court judge quietly tossed out a lawsuit that had been filed by developers against the cities of Los Angeles and Santa Clarita for their opposition to a mini-city development of 5,500 homes between the two cities.
The two cities rejected the development due to its environmental impact in March, but the developers sued for $100 million soon after. The judge threw out all claims made by developer Los Lomas Land Company.
While gas prices have dropped from their historic highs of earlier this summer, many believe they’re never likely to return to the low levels that made the U.S. such a motor-happy nation for decades. Because of that, social observers like James Howard Kunstler and others see a bleak future for car-dependent suburbia, with the sprawl degrading into vast slums or being abandoned altogether.
But does that have to be the case? Suburbs might not have been developed with New Urbanism in mind, but maybe they could be reinvented. Perhaps they could become the 21st Century version of the 18th Century farm community, with lots of individual homesteads dotted across a wide swath of agricultural land.
