The New York Times confirms what I argued back in April: high energy prices are putting a halt to urban sprawl. The NYT article focuses on the Denver exurbs but one can just as easily substitute it for the Bay Area or SoCal exurbs:

Across the nation, the realization is taking hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a change with lasting consequences. The shift to costlier fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes set far from urban jobs.

In Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Minneapolis, homes beyond the urban core have been falling in value faster than those within, according to an analysis by Moody’s Economy.com….

Basic household arithmetic appears to be furthering the trend: In 2003, the average suburban household spent $1,422 a year on gasoline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By April of this year – when gas prices were about $3.60 a gallon- the same household was spending $3,196 a year, more than doubling consumption in dollar terms in less than five years.

Which is exactly what we witnessed here in California. The housing bubble began to burst here in CA in mid to late 2006, when gas prices first broke $3 for a sustained period of time. And the areas first and hardest hit were those dependent on long commuters – Riverside County, Stockton, Modesto.

It’s a phenomenon we’re witnessing here in Monterey County. Home prices have held fairly steady here on the peninsula, but in the new suburbs such as Marina and Greenfield sprawl has ceased. Several major developments have been put on hiatus or canceled outright, even though the cities have already built the roads.

The deeper problem is that California has spent far too much time and money promoting a failed urban model. The time has come to Redefine the California Dream for the 21st Century. We need to reinvest in our city centers and provide the infrastructure – especially the mass transit infrastructure – to bring folks into the urban centers. But we must also provide the housing capacity for them. The 20th century homeowner aristocracy has to give way to a 21st century middle class that will be fundamentally urban, not suburban.

Over the weekend David Dayen compared California’s situation to that of Youngstown, Ohio in the 1980s. It was an interesting choice of cities. Youngstown is pursuing a strategy of livability and post-industrial land use, including the encouragement of food production and cutting off services to abandoned housing tracts. It took Youngstown 25 hard years to accept that the past will never return and a new path is necessary. Will it take California that long to realize its suburban dream is dead and that our future is urban?

God I hope not.