One time inner city ghettos like Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Crown Heights are gradually being gentrified into middle class neighborhoods. Property values are even rising in what were once the most entrenched slums, like East New York.

Meanwhile, the inner suburbs are beginning to decay as middle class professionals no longer move there to raise families. Low income residents displaced from the inner city are being pushed into these areas where rent is low - but still not saving money because they have to buy a car and pay for gas just to get groceries, and if they take transit to work it's now the 3-10x more expensive commuter rail rather than the affordable subway.

The outer suburbs where McMansions dominate are still thriving, but a few years ago I drove around the middle ring suburb where my dad grew up. In his childhood and even in mine it had been a solidly middle class Levittown clone. Tidy homes and yards, well-kept strip malls, and all. Now it's a textbook example of suburban decay. Entire blocks of houses that desperately need paint jobs and repairs. Deserted parking lots in strip malls with half the storefronts empty and the pavement cracked so badly a small child could get lost in the gaps. Independent businesses boarded up. Old people pushing grocery carts along nearly deserted sidewalks -- probably two or three miles each way to the supermarket. Not a pretty sight.

You see the same in Detroit, among other places. A suburb populated by wealthy or even middle class taxpayers can afford to keep up the infrastructure and economic engine to make it a pleasant place to live. One populated by low income people can't -- it soon becomes unlivable. That's going to be a conundrum for us to solve in this century. I hope we address it by building upwards and expanding public transit to make city-style living affordable again for everyone (which would also be a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars than repaving thousands of miles of roads and keeping up sprawling electric and water/sewer lines in suburbs where people wouldn't live if they could afford the city), but fear we haven't the political will to do so.

That is not in the slightest true. Your thing about oil is a red herring.

Urban areas (farms back then) were ALWAYS cheaper than cities.

Perhaps this statement is more clear: Due to cheap oil this is the only time in history where living outside the city and driving miles and miles to work everyday is cheaper then living in the city right next to work.

I think suburban living is generally going to be less time-consuming than urban living unless you're doing something dumb, like communting into Los Angles or Washington, D.C.

There are times where the diversity of a city would be great, but I don't like the noise, traffic, or public transportation.

In the bay area, BART is ok, Caltrain isn't bad, but Muni? Oy.

Just coming back from a business trip to Tokyo (my first time here), I can see how public transport can be very efficient. That said, even here, I got to over hear some google employees whining about their offices being moved to an area that was mostly business park and not wanting to commute.

No matter where you choose to live, there are personal choices that are part of the calculus.

I can, on the other hand, speak to suburban living being as alienating as anything I've ever encountered. Sitting in a car, alone, for an hour a day to go to and from work--time I couldn't spend doing anything of use, be it reading or working or talking to a friend--was the most soul-killing time of my life.

However if living space isn't as a big of an issue, there is definitely a sweet spot where you can find smaller spaces that make living in the city cheaper then suburban life.

then you can separate the source of energy from the consumer of energy.