Do Mobile Lives Have a Future?

In: Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie: Journal of economic and social geography, Band 103, Heft 5, S. 566-576

Abstract

AbstractThis paper shows how oil has been central to the mobile civilisation that developed around the world during the twentieth century. Various aspects of this oil civilisation are examined, including the development of centres of high carbon living such asDubai. This paper explores the probable peaking of oil and its problematic consequences. It is shown how this has already had major economic and social consequences. New forms of indebtedness were directed to new kinds of property purchaser and the parcelling up of these debts into new financial packages. From the 1980s onwards many newAmerican suburbs were built distant from city centres but rising oil prices led to the collapse of the mortgages of those living in oil‐dependent suburbs and finance during 2007‐8 onwards. Some writers consider whether a more generalised 'peaking' is now occurring at least in the global north, of oil, gas, food and water.