Will high gas prices kill the suburbs?

I have gotten a lot of questions recently, as people discuss the Unites States' current gas price situation, as to whether or not this has had an effect on real estate.

The short answer is no.

Cincinnati is like most other metropolitan areas in that people in the last 10 to 20 years have been more and more willing to live farther from work in order to have bigger, newer homes. This accounts for the boom in places like Liberty Township and Maineville, and Goshen, where you can get a great size new house for a great price, but you may have to commute 45 minutes to work.

With gasoline just above $4 per gallon, I haven't seen any effects yet. But we know people are thinking about it. No doubt people who recently bought homes are wondering if they made the right choice in location. Although being a Realtor means driving around all day every day, which is no fun with high gas prices, I still find myself happy about where I chose to buy, since I'm close to 2 highways. I finally saw a piece in a major publication about all this with this piece in Newsweek: "Driving Down Real Estate."

I believe high oil/gas prices are here to stay. In fact, the head of OPEC just said so (it's of course due to demand from China and India), and I'm sure he knows a lot better than I. So as they continue to rise, to $5/gallon or $6/gallon or $7/gallon, will we get to the point that people start making their housing decisions based on the price of gas? It will be interesting to watch.