Oil Woes

On high oil prices:

What concerns me most is a protracted and deep recession that, as a colleague of The Naples Institute so rightly points out, will hurt most those who can weather it least. It's unfair and unnecessary; if our Washington leadership continues to do nothing of meaning to counter this, then we don't really have any leadership in Washington, I'd argue.

What concerns me second-most is that oil prices will come down far and fast (in of itself a very good thing), and that the result will be that the American consumer - all of us - will forget right away that this crisis ever happened. That is exactly what happened after the oil crisis of the 70's; all one need do is look out the window at the size of our homes, vehicles, and urban sprawl to see this.

Houston of all places is leading the country in redistricting to bring people in from the suburbs and also to create mixed-use space, and is vastly increasing its commuter rail system over the next 3 years (now that's fast!). The mayor says that it isn't governmental coercion that is behind this, but consumer choice - the best possible situation, I think liberals and conservatives can agree.