Observations

As the Gasolene (read petrol) prices are increasing there are lot of things which I observe as a passing visitor to this country America.
We happen to live in a State (Iowa) which is in the midwest . America basically has vast streches of land and it is a very very young country . When they built this country they built the cities far and wide and even a moderately small place like where we live (Desmoines) is far flung. Even for basic necessity like grocery and milk one has to go a few miles say 5 miles. So without a vehicle (car) virtually living is just not possible. There is no public transport system at all. For that matter surprisingly except for in New york, I have not travelled or seen a public transport system, in Ralleigh, (north carolina) Memphis(tennesse) Tuscon (Arizona) or this place.
I see even Universities are quite big and to move from one department to another you need a vehicle. I don's see that many bicycles also inside the campus and almost all the students have cars. So basically the whole structure depends on individuals having a vehicle to commute.
While planning the importance was not given for the public transport system. Probabaly they took the cheap petrol for granted, like they take so many other things for granted.
I am told by anand that in contrast public transport system is very good in Europe even in small places. He says you can just commute by trams and buses which are very good and about the inter city trains I have heard so much. He says Europeans are very much aware of enviromental issues and many people use the bicycle to avoid pollution. May be it is because the petrol is quite expensive in Europe and they are health conscious too.
He was saying there were lot of clean and neat small stores every where so that you can buy whatever you want without having to travel long distance.
Coming back to America, anand was saying he could see many neighbour hood small stores in washington dc (like our old chettiar kadai?)which sell many things unlike in the cities which I have mentioned you have only the chain of super markets, like Walmart, Target , etc etc. .... This concept of small neighbourhood stores help people so that they need not have to commute every week just to buy those much needed groceries.

I was thinking of Mumbai's suburbs , each of which is a city in itself which contains everything from, stores to schools to hospitals to college to what not. So many of mumbaikars don't move out of the suburbs except for work which of course again is a night mare.
So I can visualize in America, in a few years down the lane many small shops coming in each or some of the housing complexes and those who take the intiative and start these shops are going to make real money.
My wishful thinking is that some invention helps in making solar energy cheaper and viable so that commuting does not become costly.
One added advantage of small shops is at least it will put an end to the monopoly of big chain of stores which kills the small business.