That quote is from is a young Japanese exec, in a Newsweek story called “A Post Car Society,” and in a lot of ways, it neatly encapsulates my mentality on the subject (albeit without the trend-driven undertones). Barring radical breakthroughs in renewable power generation and storage, the age of cheap energy is over, and that requires re-inventing our contemporary culture that has been built almost entirely around the automobile. Everything about the way our cities are planned, our food is grown, our goods are produced - it all relies on gas (which is still cheaper than water, by the way).

I’m not sure whether it’s mostly reactionism against the suburbs where my generation was whelped, but I’m amazed by the extent to which young people are fueling the revitalization (and gentrification, admittedly) of real urbanity. I certainly can’t wait to live and work downtown, and I have no desire whatsoever to own a car. I get the impression that most people take owning a car for granted without internalizing the massive financial, cultural (I live in Rexdale, in the middle of nowhere - it sucks), and environmental burden it really represents for them. Nothing is for sure, obviously, but if I can continue to find work in urban areas, I might never own a car. It’s actually a pretty liberating feeling.

Then again, with 140 million new (cheap and smoggy) cars predicted to hit Chinese roads by 2020, we’re probably all doomed, anyway.