According to James Kunstler in his interview in Newsweek, my little suburban town of St. Charles could be in trouble. We are the picture of Suburbia—lots of cars and no mass transit. Does this mean the rise in oil costs will wipe us out?

Probably not. I believe the Kunstler may have conveniently ignored a few problems with his hypothesis. The first being that the Internet has made it possible for companies to spread out and create satellite offices where their employees live. In St. Louis, we have as many large companies in the county as there are in the city. In addition, Kunstler seems to ignore changes in technology that will allow for cheaper, clean power, as well as, more fuel efficient vehicles. This combination would make the oil argument irrelevant.

In fact, the growth in technology and renewable energy may have the exact opposite effect of what Kunstler predicts. It is possible that increased telecommunications technology and smarter, cheaper power could allow employees to work from just about anywhere. But I am guessing that this point-of-view would probably not sell too many books.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.