Photo by Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

The New York Times recently wrote Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs. It is great that the fuel prices are now leading some to question “The American Dream.”

The surburban lifestyle - the American lifestyle - is not sustainable. It was built by the cheap and dirty energy of fossil fuels. The average American meal travels 1500 miles from farm to plate. It is seen as normal to live over an hour from your job. In suburbia, you must get in your car to go ANYWHERE - nothing is walkable.

While most of us know this, few have changed their ways to a more sustainable lifestyle. High fuel costs will now push people towards making the right lifestyle decision.

We’ve reached the apex of globalization; it’s now time for the pendulum to swing back towards localization.

Live near your work, buy locally grown food, grow your own food (in another post I’ll talk about my personal garden), support local businesses. It’s time for the urban lifestyle to see a resurgence, and for our society to move towards more of a local interdependence rather than a global one.