Gasoline dependent sprawl

The Financial Times has a video, "Are high petrol prices killing the American Dream?," about the rise in oil prices and whether or not that affects the American Dream.

It's not that amazing of a video, and doesn't address the reality that we've built a land use and mobility paradigm that is automobile and therefore gasoline dependent.

Yes, electric vehicles will make a difference in terms of gasoline dependence, but not sprawl.  They're merely what I call "next generation asphalt nation."  And while they will decrease fossil fuel dependence, they have other spillover effects--on scarce minerals, battery needs, battery recycling, and the need for a more robust electricity generation and distribution grid.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. At least 12 other states are already in line to adopt California’s zero-emissions vehicle mandate. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Meanwhile, California is moving forward on banning the sale of gasoline-fueled motor vehicles as of 2035. ("California to Ban the Sale of New Gasoline Cars," New York Times).

When the first oil crisis happened in 1973, when Saudi Arabia realized it had the power because ultimately the oil in its country was controlled by it, not the American oil producers, the US did not recognize that to reduce risk from oil supply shocks, it needed to create an economy and society that was less dependent on oil.

Sure steps were taken, like "fleet economy" gas mileage requirements on automobile production, leading to the production of more fuel efficient cars.  And industry has made a variety of energy conservation steps.

And the US government created the Strategic Reserve of oil, to ward of supply interruptions.

But only by reducing demand for oil in substantive ways could the US's resilience in the face of supply and demand shocks be increased.

Although because the US is such a large producer of oil ("The Petro States of America," Bloomberg), it probably wasn't seen as a big deal.

By contrast, European countries still supported more compact forms of organizing land use, in ways that it could be well served by transit, complemented in some places by walking and biking.

Germany in particular is very much committed to the car, as BMW, Mercedes, and VW are significant contributors to the nation's economic success, employment, exports, etc.

At the same time, they recognized that cities in particular were best served by transit, not the automobile, and they maintained and increased support of transit, walking, and biking as an element of their land use and mobility policy.  Other policies--excise tax on car purchases, excise tax on oil, expensive process to get a driver's license, difficult to get parking, etc.--make car ownership expensive, and encourages alternative mobility options.

By contrast, the US believes in homogeneous mobility--the car. 

In short, US policy promotes access to oil, more than it is focused on price.  Not reduction in demand which reduces price generally.