Peak Oil Task Force Report - City of Bloomington - State of Indiana

Spatial & Economic Dispersion
The result was the unprecedented spatial expansion of the typical community and a vast
increase of the human scale. Over time, as suburbs exploded around city cores, they
drained those cores of residents. Inner cities became little more than employment centers
or depressed quarters for those unable, financially, to escape them. Meanwhile, the
suburbs developed a new, and heretofore
unique, arrangement whereby zoning
forced land use into specialized pods such
as residential, employment, or retail.
These pods were separated by large
distances and connected to each other via
highways and arterial roads. The city’s
dense and redundant web of street grids
gave way to the suburbs’ sparse set of
connectors.
The automobile‐enabled diaspora’s effects
are felt most acutely by lower‐income
earners. Without access to low‐cost transportation, such as pedestrian travel or public
transit, lower‐income workers are forced to either take on the expense of automotive
ownership ($5,000 a year for an average automobile 128 ) or restrict their employment
opportunities. Because lower‐income workers are more likely to own older and less fuel
efficient vehicles, the effects of fuel prices are particularly problematic for these workers. If
a worker must make a twenty mile round‐trip commute from her place of residence to her
place of employment and her vehicle averages twenty miles per gallon, then paying for
gasoline alone will consume a significant portion of her income. At $5,000 a year for
vehicle ownership, a laborer working a typical 2,000 hours/year must earn $2.50 an hour
128 According to the American Automobile Association.
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force
Source: http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/cwp/landuse.htm
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