Letter Never Sent

New blog friend, Brian, has a good review of End of Suburbia, a movie about peak oil’s impact on the American suburb, with some predictions for the future.

The last part of End of Suburbia takes a turn from the thesis of a doomed civilization to more optimistic thoughts. They discuss the ideas of people returning to urban settings, sometimes referred to as ‘new urbanism’, where most of what residents need for everyday life is within walking distance (or at least a much shorter trip on public transportation or car). The filmmakers also touch on the idea of buying locally grown and produced goods to cut down on the ridiculous distances the stuff we buy and consume is transported (why do I need an apple from New Zealand in California?).

I think a lot of trends could mitigate the impact of expensive fuel. People will sacrifice a lot to keep their own fairly large portion of land and housing. However, on a personal level, I am interested in reviving the individual character present in pre-suburban neighborhoods. One can only stand so much widespread homogeneity.

Do you ever wonder how much your way of life is based on arbitrary concepts and social tradition? Why do people own homes or rent apartments? Wouldn’t it be better if we all lived in shared dorms and made better use of mostly empty living space? Why do some people travel and move frequently while others live in one place their entire lives? Aside from a basic necessity for shelter, what motivates people to live the way they do? What ways can we live better? In what ways can we take advantage of modern technology to improve life? What options are we missing?

These things are worth thinking about.

My lease is up in June. I’m considering experimenting with my life, specifically my shelter. The goals for my new arrangements are simple: maximum flexibility and mobility, short-term commitments, low cost, and maximum ease. I would buy property, but I don’t want to tie myself down to the DFW area for the next five years. I would get an apartment, but I have little furniture and I would never spend time there. What other options are there?

The best idea I’ve come up with so far is to live in a hotel. It sounds crazy, but consider the benefits:

1. No lease: No long-term commitments. Move whenever you like. No rent checks, no landlords. Pay by the week or just put it on your debit card / credit card. Earn points on your living expenses and make money on the float.
2. Maid service: Ideal for someone who hates cleaning and making the bed.
3. No utility bills: Most hotels have free cable, local phone service, and Internet access in addition to the usual power and water. Crank the A/C up in August and forget about it.
4. Free continental breakfast: Most hotels serve a free continental breakfast. This saves you about $5 a day or $150 a month. Load up on free oatmeal and coffee.
5. Swimming pools, fitness centers: Many apartments have pools, hot tubs, and fitness centers, but some don’t.
6. No bad neighbors: If someone disturbs you, ask the front desk to move you to another room.
7. 24 hour room service: Get hungry and don’t feel like leaving? Order in and keep on working.
8. Concierge: Send off your clothes for drycleaning. Get your shoes shined. Have a copy of the Wall Street Journal dropped off at your door every day.

According to my calculations, living in a one bedroom apartment costs an estimated $700-$1500 a month after bills and rent. Living in a hotel suite, costs between $850-$2800 a month based on my estimates. This is a wide range based on your preferred level of luxury. Obviously, if you’re staying at a five star hotel it will cost you $5000 a month and up, but the level of service would be much better. This is more than most people need. For someone with minimal needs, hotel living is a good option based solely on economic grounds. When you consider the added benefits of flexibility and ease, it becomes even more compelling.

When I started researching hotel living as an option, I came across an article in Trendspotting about a trend they call “5-Star Living“. Apparently, many new luxury hotels, including the W here in Dallas, have a few floors set aside for permanent residences. These are condos with many of the features you would find at a luxury hotel: spa, concierge, room service, etc. As people move beyond the traditional suburban family unit and as baby boomers retire, this becomes a logical way of life for many.

Interesting article on recent demographic changes. Many of the large cities are starting to look like the third world in terms of class division:

This is something few would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now moving out of, not into, coastal California and South Florida, and in very large numbers they’re moving out of our largest metro areas. They’re fleeing hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of moving to Washington they’re moving out. The domestic outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people, 650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations–these are driving many Americans elsewhere.

The result is that these Coastal Megalopolises are increasingly a two-tiered society, with large affluent populations happily contemplating (at least until recently) their rapidly rising housing values, and a large, mostly immigrant working class working at low wages and struggling to move up the economic ladder. The economic divide in New York and Los Angeles is starting to look like the economic divide in Mexico City and São Paulo.

Democratic politicians like to decry what they describe as a widening economic gap in the nation. But the part of the nation where it is widening most visibly is their home turf, the place where they win their biggest margins (these metro areas voted 61% for John Kerry) and where, in exquisitely decorated Park Avenue apartments and Beverly Hills mansions with immigrant servants passing the hors d’oeuvres, they raise most of their money.

It looks like middle class Americans are moving out to where you can balance a lower cost of living and available cheap housing with decent wages.

Domestic inflow has been a whopping 19% in Las Vegas, 15% in the Inland Empire (California’s Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, where much of the outflow from Los Angeles has gone), 13% in Orlando and Charlotte, 12% in Phoenix, 10% in Tampa, 9% in Jacksonville. Domestic inflow was over 200,000 in the Inland Empire, Phoenix, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Orlando. These are economic dynamos that are driving much of America’s growth. There’s much less economic polarization here than in the Coastal Megalopolises, and a higher percentage of traditional families: Natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) in the Interior Boomtowns is 6%, well above the 4% in the Coastal Megalopolises.

The nation’s center of gravity is shifting: Dallas is now larger than San Francisco, Houston is now larger than Detroit, Atlanta is now larger than Boston, Charlotte is now larger than Milwaukee. State capitals that were just medium-sized cities dominated by government employees in the 1950s–Sacramento, Austin, Raleigh, Nashville, Richmond–are now booming centers of high-tech and other growing private-sector businesses. San Antonio has more domestic than immigrant inflow even though the border is only three hours’ drive away. The Interior Boomtowns generated 38% of the nation’s population growth in 2000-06.