Living with $8.50 gas

Paul Krugman has an interesting piece in the New York Times this week.

It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

Krugman examines two differences: driving more fuel-efficient cars (solution: buy a new car... easy!) and driving less (solution: deploy a new transit infrastructure and new expectation of safety/accomplishment in dense urban living... ugh...)