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I’m not mad about gas prices. I’m mad about gas.
Everybody’s talking about high gas prices. The candidates for president are talking about it, and how mad they are about it, and how they’re going to fix it. In this op-ed from 12 years ago, during another campaign for the White House, Russell Baker explains that it’s not high gas prices that has him angry. It’s just gas in general.
Sure I’m mad about the price of gasoline, but what I’m really mad about is having to buy the stuff just to go to the grocery.
I’m mad about the grocery having relocated from just around the corner to three miles away in what used to be a cornfield out in the country. And why? Because the grocer needs 15 acres of parking lot to accommodate cars that have to be driven three miles every time you want a bag of grapefruit and a gallon of milk.
I can relate. Of course, the op-ed is satire as much as anything, and it doesn’t consider all the benefits of the larger, farther-out grocery store and the fact that cars can take people to jobs they couldn’t get to before, which gives them a quality of life they couldn’t attain before. But I’m no economist, and I do enjoy being able to ride my bike to church, to the grocery, to work, and to play. But I cannot. Without sweating. A lot. Because it’s too far.
back to top26 Comments to “I’m not mad about gas prices. I’m mad about gas.”
None of the places you mention are too far away in Germany. And if you’re too in a hurry to walk, you can ride your bike on special lanes and asphalt paths (lighted in the early winter darkness).
Sure, the taxes are Evil, and government is a Terrible Tyrant with its 100-year plans for every square meter. But the hours it takes you to earn the money to buy your car and fill it with gas, together with the time you spend on the road, is more than the hours it would take to walk to most of the places you need to go? And the old folks’ home is across the street from the S-Bahn so that you have no excuse not to bring the flowers you bought in the Saturday market (a fifteen minute walk from the house).
This is not the whole picture, however. Even in such a dubious paradise, however, many Germans wonder what it must feel like to trade in the willow basket for cheap gas and a SUV speeding into the darkening prairie toward an oasis of light towers, fast food, big stores and all-suite motels, a thousand miles from good bread and beer, in the most blessed land on earth.
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I often wonder if all those anti-nuclear power groups, the dedicated enviro folks who oppose wind power or drilling in the ANWR.. do you suppose they are privately funded by Saudis or other Opec folks??
I have often wanted to attend an anti oil drilling rally dressed in the garb of a sheikh or Ayatollah.
When we decline to develop our resources those are the main beneficiaries.
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Currently, I am looking to move and the criteria are walking distance shops, pubs, groceries and parks. I am actually finding it easier than expected. Currently, I live in a neighborhood with all of the above. It is great. The reason for the criteria is I hate traffic. Getting in the car is like going to the dentist. However, I do like road trips, just not around town.
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A anti-Wal*Mart post?
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I’m mad about the governments inflationary, keynesian, consumerist, controlling polices.
That whole article seems like it was written by someone who doesn’t want to work and wishes that Keynes’ millenial dream had been realized. Let him not eat!
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No, Luke, just a rant about how cities are growing faster than public transportation or common sense. It is not only Wal*Mart moving to the edge of town, but other big-box stores like Home Depot, Target, Lowes and others as well. Common sense says build the stores where people live. But people don’t like the monstrosities in their back yard, but like the convenience the big stores give us. Instead of walking a few blocks and going into small stores with limited selection, we Americans would rather drive to a large store that has everything.
Not I. When I need something, I try to go to the smaller stores nearby and pay a little higher price. I get to park closer to the door, I don’t have to walk half a mile just to get one item, and I don’t have to wait in a long line at the check out. What a concept!
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Common sense says build the stores where people live.
Don’t blame this all on the consumer. Those stores lobby hard to build on less expensive land – ie, land farther away from where people live. They also ensure they don’t have to pay for the roads, so they simply plop down on an intersection not built to handle the influx of traffic.
That said, I do agree with you in a number of ways – I walk to stores when need be and patronize smaller stores because I enjoy the customer service and/or specialize inventory.
I haven’t shopped at a Home Depot/Lowe’s in years. I use a local hardware store, where the employees actually know what they are talking about, and the local nursery, where the products are home-grown and the staff can make recommendations based on the area where I live, not what’s on sale nationally.
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HSK,
You just have the wrong bike the kind you peddle will just get you killed on way or another. My Valkyrie was blast tooling round Phoenix at 70 mph last night and the temperature was just perfect. I thought it was odd that every 5 miles on the 220 there was a brand new huge shopping center with Home Depot, Kohl’s, Target, Best Buy, theaters, etc plus all the the eateries and smaller shops. Why ride a peddle bike when you can just walk no more than a couple of miles at the most.
But you can hit 3 super shopping complexes in 10 minutes on a real bike not made for children. Nothing beats living in suburbia today – if you can afford it.
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I’d forgotten just how spectacularly unfunny Russell Baker was. How he ever made a dime from his humor is beyond me.
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Llama, I bet more people die from motorcycle accidents every year than bicycle accidents. Some would say they kind of vehicle with only two wheels will just get you killed.
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Fortunately, we still have choices and must/may rank our preferences in order of importance to us and to those who live with us. If we choose to live in a remote area, the “given” is that we must travel to acquire stuff we need/want just as the given for living in a densely populated urban setting, close to stuff sellers, is that we must put up with the antics, good and bad, of other humans as well as older, smaller living spaces. Which choice fits us best is usually determined by what is personally important or tolerable as well as to what things we are willing to allocate adequate funds to attain and maintain.
These stores, which some find offensive, must produce profit or not exist. Around here, such new stores are filling in gaps in the urban fabric on property either not formerly used or which is under redevelopment. I’ve not seen one of these businesses build on the outskirts unless there is other planned/existing new development certain to provide customers. After all, who needs these stores more than new homeowners making their new home conform to their personal choices? Perhaps if you live in a development area completed within the last 10 years, which was recently the former outskirts, you may need to drive some to get to one of these stores as the development, that produced your home, continues away from the undesirable—to some—urban core.
What bothers me is that some think it within government purview to dictate, in a foolish, power-trip attempt to manage, which choice is/should be “correct.” They do this by mandating/”encouraging” energy use policy and setting environmental/conservation requirements which distort the economics of our available choices. Were the government to “butt out” of market driven energy options, where its policy distorts the market beyond the need of societal protection which government should provide, we’d find that the price of most essentials—gas and food being the topics of today—would likely drop.
But, of course, those on their social engineering power-trip using the tools of energy/environmental policy would have to come home.
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I live in Nashville, well within city limits. When I was looking to buy a house, I wanted a place that would be convenient–shopping nearby, parks, etc. I finally stopped even paying attention to which stores were close, because I realized that every home I looked at was convenient to shopping, and most were close to the expressway as well (since we have three major expressways through the city, and secondary ones that link to them).
Counting walking distance as about one-and-a-quarter miles each way, I’m within walking distance of Walmart, another large store, the post office, my bank and at least one other one, a small grocery store, a park, two vets, a bar (far enough away to be non-problematic), numerous fast-food places and at least two restaurants, a couple auto-repair shops (very convenient when one needs a repair–drive the car there and walk home), and I could keep going. I’m also close enough to walk to at least three churches, though unfortunately my own church is a half-hour drive away. Oh yeah, I’m within walking distance of a gas station as well, but that doesn’t seem to do me much good.
Are there other cities out there equally convenient? I’m sure there are. I do feel blessed to have found this one. If I could transplant my church down the street from me, then I could sell my car….
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“Don’t blame this all on the consumer. Those stores lobby hard to build on less expensive land – ie, land farther away from where people live. They also ensure they don’t have to pay for the roads, so they simply plop down on an intersection not built to handle the influx of traffic.”
Sure, we can blame it on city councils as well. Look at Chicago. They wouldn’t let Walmart build in Chicago, so Walmart went to the suburbs.
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#10 WIGLAF,
Some would have us peddling around, like the Chinese no longer do for some reason, extolling the healthy virtues; of green living, exercise, eating right, not taking risks, non consumerism, and nature. Of course this life goes with being poor and missing prosperity just a little bit perhaps.
Well, who misses these things when we have each other and we are all equally miserable and poor.
My take on being killed riding a bicycle had nothing to do with safety but you are near death the less if you end up riding a bicycle for any other reason than the sheer enjoyment of doing so.
If you are not having any fun shopping at stores you drive, rather than peddle to, try shopping at differnt stores where you can buy stuff tobig to peddle home
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i refuse to live anywhere where I can’t walk to what I need. I also refuse to live in an area where what I need is located in a strip mall, big box store, or shopping centre.
The underlying problem not mentioned here is the design of modern North American suburbs. They are designed around the car which makes McCain and Clinton’s call for a gas tax holiday even more inane since the car culture is subsidized far more than the gas tax collects.
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We have this “problem” in those areas of NJ that are currently being built up. There is no allowance made for a business district in neighborhoods that would accommodate a cleaners, bank, etc. I am fortunate that I live in such an area. Even some of the truly wealthy are within walking distance of our small business district. It is not the main one in the center of town, but it developed more than a hundred years because people walked then. Just think of how houses were always around a town green. But parking is a premium for people who are too lazy to walk or are just a little bit too far to walk.
Newer developments in the past 40 years or so assumed there would always be sufficient gas. People wanted “classier” neighborhoods without the corner deli. Most people are just worried about this now that the gas is so high. If you plan your errands, however, you can accomplish a great deal in one trip.
You have to decide what kind of life you want — but you had to do that before this gas crisis. If you weren’t a walker before, odds are, you’re not a walker now and you’re just kvetchin’.
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“The underlying problem not mentioned here is the design of modern North American suburbs.”
Agreed, but it is only one of the problems. The modern spaghetti pile of suburban street design is incredibly inefficient compared to the grid design of the past particularly when it comes to rerouting traffic by necessity. Should a problem close a street, it may be necessary for a modern suburbanite to go miles out of the way to get around it where in a grid layout, it’s one block over, up one block and one block back to the original path.
The real source of our problem is oil supply and refining capacity. We can’t drill for/pump our own oil and if we could, we couldn’t refine enough to bring prices down that much.
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There is no place I need to go that I can’t reach on my bicycle, but it takes me 4 times longer.
When I get there my clothes are funny and my smell is funny, but no one there laughs with me.
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With high gas prices we’re getting exactly what we deserve. For decades we’ve known that days of unaffordable gas would eventually arrive. So we took the prudent steps of refusing to mandate higher automobile efficiency, refusing to put a limit on the expansion of suburbs, refusing to push for more nuclear power plants for generating elecricity, etc, etc, etc.
I’m happy that gas is over $3.00 a gallon. I hope it goes higher. I wish it was $6.00 a gallon. Or maybe $10.00.
Flame away. But what many people want the government to now do to ease the public’s gasoline pains is analogous to giving pain medication to a lazy, heavy smoking, heavy drinking, morbidly obese, 50 year old couch potato who is experiencing regular chest pains. Pain medication won’t help when the unavoidable heart attack soon comes. If fact, the chest pains are a warning that a total lifestyle change must occur, or else.
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Well, Alan, since you have all this extra money for gas, could you send some to me? Better yet, could you send some extra that I could give to a family member who must drive for a living and has five kids to support, and cannot afford gas at four dollars an hour, let alone ten?
Why have we suddenly become a nation that believes it’s WRONG to use gas? Sorry, I just don’t get it. Find a cleaner alternative, great. Walk where you can, great. But most of us have to drive, and some of us cannot afford four-dollar-a-gallon gas, and certainly not ten dollars a gallon. If you want to see middle-class families homeless, go ahead and dream of ten-dollar gas. But don’t be surprised if your views get called “cruel,” because they are.
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I agree, Cheryl. This problem will not be solved in the short term. What will happen, is that the middle class is barely struggling to get by, and if gas went to $10/gallon, there would be millions of homeless and people in food lines. Our current wages will simply not support prices of that level. I, for one, haven’t had a raise in 5 years. But my expenses have sure skyrocketed! Not everyone can or wants to live in a city. Walking or biking is not an option with children, most of the time. There has to be a happy medium here.
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Actually, $10/gallon gasoline will force those of us who live far from our jobs to move closer. Small towns like mine with no local industry or jobs (except a casino) will shrivel up and die. The school where I teach will have to close since it would not be able to afford the cost of bus fuel (we have 400+ miles of gravel roads to cover) and the district residents will all move to the cities where they work, thus overcrowding the schools there. Cities would be overcrowded or spread out even more to house the influx of rural residents moving closer to work.
No, Alan, $10 gasoline would actually be the end of America as we know it.
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I should add that $10 gasoline without a cheap alternative would be our doom. But perhaps it would open a few eyes of those who could do something but are dragging their collective feet.
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Alan writes: “For decades we’ve known that days of unaffordable gas would eventually arrive.”
That’s what you call a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gas prices wouldn’t be higher without regulations on refineries and drilling, as well as bad government economic policy causing inflation.
Alan writes: “refusing to push for more nuclear power plants”
Guess what? It’s environmentalists like YOU who demanded regulations to prevent the construction of new nuclear power plants.
Alan writes: “Or maybe $10.00″
That’s cold-hearted, selfish, and misanthropic of you to hope for $10 per gallon. I’m glad you’re not dictator (if you were the ruler, that’s the kind of ruling you’d do).
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Oh, and Alan, why don’t you just move to Myanmar. Clearly, you’d prefer their government to ours.
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Since recent discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of South America as well as Anwar mean that simple exploration and recovery could/would keep us in oil—were we to actually commit to getting it using modern recovery methods ignoring the antiquated hyperbole of the enviros and their lemmings—for a very, very long time. This would happen without touching other oil sources like oil shale or secondary recovery methods.
Had we tapped Anwar 10 years ago as well as increased our refining capacity, today we’d be very close to avoiding a large part of our current problem brought on by supply issues. However, the present strength of the dollar and current speculation in the markets, which are driving prices up more than anything, could still be a problem, but much less so were we to have our own oil supply.
And, $10 gas would remain Alan’s fantasy.
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