I just read that people are suddenly showing a preference for living in cities due to the higher cost of travel to work. That made me think about water not gas.
Connecticut has a plentiful amount of water in the ground, in it's rivers lakes and ponds and in the air. It falls as rain, snow sleet hail and not occasionally buckets.
Given that the future big issue of our world during the 21st century will be the fight over water, I for one wouldn't move to any big city or small town which didn't have that kind of abundant free water supply.
Cities like Atlanta and New York have already suffered from droughts in this new century
The aquifer under the Midwestern states is dropping at an alarming level every year. Flooding of plains does not refill those vast underground caverns. Flood waters rush out via the big rivers into the Gulf. The previously dry earth doesn't have time to soak in those sudden rains. Corn and wheat fields need that water to grow. It's being washed away and used up. Soon states like Idaho, Kansas and Missouri will be rationing water - charging higher water rates to limit use.
Aquifers under the valley in which Palm Springs and Palm Desert are built is being sucked dry to green golf courses at a generously fast rate of use. Water there is already a commodity. Ditto Las Vegas. Vast parts of California - in fact today in the British Weekly science digest, New Scientist the possibility of a 500 year cyclitic draught returning to the Southwest was articled.
The moral of the story - while gas is the current problem to many home buyers - trying to live near or in a city to cut down on travel costs during the dependence on fossil fuels - that problem will fade as new fuels take over - but the drinking bathing swimming and agricultural use of limited water supplies may prove the urban selections to be short sighted.
I have a well as do all my neighbors. We don't pay a dime for water. Water that doesn't come to us from old lead pipes through filtration systems managed by municipalities - inherently unmotivated. So we are luck and privileged. In urban CT there are plentiful sources of renewable waters. And we have that old faithful snow which feeds our underground reservoirs every year.
The moral of my tale: Look at all the future issues before you buy.
