Wouldn’t it be horrible if our American suburbs starting turning into slums?

It’s already happening, according to this article from The Atlantic: “The Next Slum?”

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay . . . The experience of cities during the 1950s through the ’80s suggests that the fate of many single-family homes on the metropolitan fringes will be resale, at rock-bottom prices, to lower-income families—and in all likelihood, eventual conversion to apartments. This future is not likely to wear well on suburban housing. Many of the inner-city neighborhoods that began their decline in the 1960s consisted of sturdily built, turn-of-the-century row houses, tough enough to withstand being broken up into apartments, and requiring relatively little upkeep. By comparison, modern suburban houses, even high-end McMansions, are cheaply built. Hollow doors and wallboard are less durable than solid-oak doors and lath-and-plaster walls. The plywood floors that lurk under wood veneers or carpeting tend to break up and warp as the glue that holds the wood together dries out; asphalt-shingle roofs typically need replacing after 10 years. Many recently built houses take what structural integrity they have from drywall—their thin wooden frames are too flimsy to hold the houses up.

This article documents that many of yesterday’s suburban Pleasantvilles that are already tipping into decay. The elephant in the room is the inexorable increase in energy prices. Cheap oil created the suburbs. Expensive energy will destroy their affordability.

Why am I convinced that the rise in energy prices is inexorable? Because even though we are starting to have a national dialogue that “something” needs to be done about energy supplies, very few Americans are taking this crisis seriously. We continue carving out new suburbs, encouraged by pipe dreams about corn being solution to the energy problem. Yet we are doing almost nothing to develop sustainable ways to replacing the 5,000 gallons of oil Americans use each second. We are in deep denial while conservation is still ridiculed by many Americans (e.g., those who vote with SUV’s and new suburban and exurban houses).

The coming years are not going to be kind to many of those Americans who bought into unsustainable versions of the American Dream.