I think this whole "suburbia is dying" trend will itself die off within 5 years. Once these new generation of plug-in electric cars make it to the mass market (go look up the chevrolet volt), people will move back to the suburbs in even bigger swarms than before.
I think this is something that seems to go right over people's heads; a car is not by definition a vehicle that runs on geologically extracted hydrocarbons. In addition to biofuels research (which may or may not come to anything), electric cars are on the cusp of reality. Volt looks promising, but it's likely just a start; still, it's likely to be a nice demonstration. The real problem of electric storage is solvable, and the technology far from being a pie in the sky. The car's not going to die, and gas is far from completely unaffordable as it is. Now, the current climate will affect certain lifestyles, but not nearly to the extent where suburbs are suddenly toast.
Heck if I could drive anywhere I wanted while paying NO gas whatsoever, I'd be driving a hell of a lot more myself too. I actually plan to get a Volt as soon as it's available (which should be in 2010, as GM keeps insisting).
If the future is not the biofuels, but electrics, expect to pay a lot more in licencing and toll fees. Nobody is going to let you drive a car for 'free.'
Well, plug-in cars won't address the greater problems of suburbia which is a lack of social cohesion and alienation.
Hipster, I eschew suburbs like many a young urban planner, but this is not a dictatorship, and I cannot tell people what is a proper way for them to live.
Also, as Herbert Muschamp once said, plywood only lasts 40 years; the horrible workmanship of frame housing basically preculdes their gentrification into the kind of well-heeled neighbourhoods that a lot of their pre-war counterparts have achieved.
New houses with proper repairs can last a long time; furthermore, they can be torn down and built anew. This happens even in our fair city.
Indeed, we are seeing this growth in poverty in the inner ring suburbs built immediatelty after the second world war. These problems, much more so than high gas prices, are sealing the fate of suburbia.
I must point out that the inner suburban decline is far from universal and is much more a result of shifting demographics and fashions; inner suburbs have always been more modest, having been built during the postwar boom, and generally don't offer large envelope sizes that most people today want.
They are also often the refugee of the poor fleeing the inner city gentrification, though this too is far from universal; furthermore, the most at threat in the Canadian context remain the suburbs with numerous apartment block rental properties. Poverty HAS shifted in many large Canadian cities, but this most certainly does not seal the fate of suburbia.
In general, I can't help but feel that there is a certain superiority complex here of the single and yuppie childless couples looking down on families for whom the suburbs were the right choice for a whole host of possible reasons.
Boy, I sound like Are Be.