[This is an EXCERPT -- read or download the full report at Common Current or here.]

1. Executive Summary

For the first time in history, the United States faces continued prices of $100+ barrel oil. The price of oil has risen to its highest level ever on an inflation-adjusted basis; crude oil on March 3, 2008, reached $103.95 a barrel (in 1980 oil reached $39.50 a barrel, which translates in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars to $103.76). Average vehicle miles driven have risen steadily on a national basis since the 1970s (rates rose more than 150% between 1977 and 2001, according to The Wall Street Journal), thus the effect of these high prices are likely to reverberate throughout the economy, despite greater fuel efficiency.

The growing use of oil in developing nations, particularly in China and India, has put a strain on the ability of global oil suppliers to meet growing demand. A major automotive manufacturer (BMW) and oil analysts are predicting that global oil supplies may be peaking within the next 3 to 20 years. Should this happen, the overall global oil supply will not be able to meet increasing global demand, thus forcing up oil prices to levels impossible to currently predict.

This study was made under the hypothesis that certain U.S. cities and metro areas are currently better prepared for higher oil prices--or potential oil supply disruptions--than are other cities and regions. A further assumption is made. Cities or regions that have existing significant alternatives to reliance on oil for transportation and alternatives to oil for building heating and electricity generation will fare better economically if oil prices remain above the barrier of $100 a barrel oil.

The main area of impact rising oil prices have in the US economy are on transportation, namely primary mobility, or the way in which people go about life’s daily needs: commuting to work or school, driving to shopping, health care, recreation and entertainment.

Using public transit and carpooling, or using alternative forms of mobility such as walking or biking, or telecommuting to work all help offset the need for exclusively relying on personal automotive transport and its attendant fuel needs. Such city mobility factors for this study were measured through public data available through the US Bureau of the Census. The way in which cities or metro areas are planned and developed also impacts fuel use and the degree of dependence on auto transport. Data on how comparatively “sprawled” metro areas are in terms of a ranking was also used to determine vulnerability to an oil crisis.

Finally, the use of heating oil or use of oil to generate electricity in metro areas was analyzed to determine vulnerability to an oil crisis for non-transport related oil uses. It should be noted that in the United States the use of heating oil or the use of oil to generate electricity had little or no impact on most cities or metro areas, thus the ranking data was included in the overall score but was not published as a separate category. Only Boston and New York use significant amounts of heating oil for buildings, though that amount is under 25% of all heating energy used and is decreasing as a percentage of the whole; only Honolulu uses a significant amount of oil to generate electricity (as of 2006, almost 80% of the city’s energy came from the combustion of oil.)