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

Relocalization
If the emergence of the personal automobile transformed the built environment into the
shape we know today, then what effect will a
decline in personal automobile use have on the
built environment? It will be, in a word,
relocalization. Instead of dispersed settlement
patterns and concentrated pockets of commerce,
neighborhoods will once again become areas of
community wherein most residents are able to
meet their everyday needs by walking, biking, or
taking public transit. As one observer puts it,
“[t]he End of Suburbia could become the End of the
Commute rather than the death of a
neighborhood.” 133 However, relocalizing the community will require us to re‐think our
built environment.
Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force
Downtown Bloomington
133 Pat Murphy, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change (Gabriola Island, BC:
New Society Publishers, 2008), 251.
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