I have written two articles for the Livemint.They are about a letter from california. Hope you enjoy them.
California’s new car culture
People have accelerated their decision to dump gas-guzzlers for fuel-efficient cars
Jyoti Pande
Living as I do in the heart of Silicon Valley, I continue to marvel every day at the innovations that are just so naturally part of people’s lives here, especially when it comes to commuting.
I have always found these alternatives a bit amusing, but when I saw a pedicab (our own Indian rickshaw)
cruising along side by side with an electric moped, I realized that attaining commuting nirvana is still the first, highest and most common goal for local residents. Recent petrol price highs accelerated many a switch, helped by the natural propensity of Californians to revel in the outdoors, thus combining commuting and exercise, and benefiting both environment and pocket.
On any given weekend, you could always see Bay Area residents getting around on every sort of wheeled device known to man. From regular bikes to the fascinating Penny Farthings and Unicycles, from the tantalizing Segways to the good ole’ Razor scooters, inline skates and Wheelies, from skateboards to their new cousin, the scary, wheeled wave-board, children and adults surfed the streets and pavements, adding their own unique charm to the Californian landscape.
You can still see them, but now not just on weekends and not just for recreational purposes. Today, they have a greater and more useful purpose. People are now using these and other innovative alternatives as a serious means for getting around. It is no longer unusual to see a middle-aged mom Razor scooty-ing to her gym, or a man in a dark suit and tie Segway-ing or skateboarding along to his next meeting. Actually, in this very techie part of the Bay Area, the odd part would be the man’s formal suit and tie, not the Segway or skateboard!
I’ve also noticed many more Zipcars on urban streets in the Bay Area these days. Also more hybrids, including the good old Prius, as well as non-hybrid Smart cars and the occasional Tesla Roadster, the brand new, locally grown, hip, all-electric sports car.
More people are choosing their cars based on mileage alone than at any other time. When fuel prices hit a high of $5 (Rs249) a gallon a few months ago, and SUVs became more infra-dig than ever before, people accelerated their decisions to dump gas-guzzlers in favour of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
In addition to free parking and the carpool lane advantage that hybrids get on the freeways (and the moral advantage that their owners get on the environment highway), these vehicles are making more and more economic sense in a wounded economy.
Now that the economic slowdown sweeping the US has permeated its final frontier, Bay Area residents are stepping up to the challenge with elegant and creative solutions grounded in pragmatism.
In the suburbs where I live, I notice that the population of those cute Global Electric Motor (Gem) cars has gone up—my neighbour down the street has one, and he is definitely smiling more as he whizzes past in this golf-cart type neighbourhood electric vehicle (NEV). I’m not sure if what is making him smile is the rebate that he probably got when he bought his Gemcar or just the liberation from ever having to put a single drop of petrol in that car (the California Air Resources Board offers rebates of up to $5,000 to consumers of alternative fuel vehicles).
But I do know what is making Kelli Glazier—a hip, attractive mom from my son’s school—happy as she drives her Gemcar to school.
“This is the most wonderful car to drive. It is heavenly,” she says when I ask her how she likes it.
“It is so much fun. I absolutely love this car. It makes me happy to drive it; the novelty, the fun, the environmental benefits. It’s awesome,” she says. “I get stopped at least, oh, two or three times a day by people asking about the car!”
Of course, the NEVs aren’t meant for the freeways or more urban areas. But in the suburbs or the neighbouring campus cities of Stanford, Berkeley or Davis, these cars are quickly gaining popularity.
For urban areas, however, the right answer seems to be car-sharing. Zipcar’s tag line, Only there when you want, perhaps explains why I find more of these zipping along when I’m in San Francisco, San Jose or Oakland, the “big city” outposts that define the north, south and east of the Bay Area. Zipcars offer people the Zen-like solution of never owning a car, merely having one when needed.
For those for whom the Zipcar is a mystery, it is really quite simple. Imagine cars parked around the city for members to use to drive by the hour, instead of owning their own vehicles. Zipcars are outfitted with wireless technology, which creates a reservation system for cars which are strategically placed in key locations. This works better in denser urban areas, where night-time garage space as well as day parking, are at a premium.
The Zipcar website says to date, it estimates that it has taken more than 90,000 personally owned vehicles off urban streets, through members surrendering ownership of their vehicles or halting a purchasing decision purely on economic sense. The website helps calculate just how much you would save if, instead of owning your vehicle, you just rented it per hour or day of use, based on return on investment, insurance premium, service, maintenance, parking and fuel costs. Zipcar members have said they save on average at least $435 per month, compared with car ownership—money more likely to be spent locally, another thing this area is big on.
Somehow, the Bay Area has been isolated from the economic slowdown sweeping through the rest of the US, and I believed that the tech-heavy nature of the Silicon Valley would continue to protect this enclave. But, despite technology companies continuing to grow and tech-stocks still holding up, thanks to firms such as Google, Apple and Facebook, the citadel may finally be crumbling.
The ripple effect of the failure of financial companies and hedge funds mainly based in the East Coast has finally reached us here. And Bay Area folks in their typical innovative style have risen to the occasion with elegant and creative solutions grounded in pragmatism.
And how do I know all this? Through my neighbourhood webgroups and my Bay Area online parents club to a large extent, but mostly through the buzz at my local farmers market where I meet real people, not online avatars.
Like most Bay Area suburbs, Palo Alto has its unique farmers market. It began in 1981 and is one of the oldest outdoor farmers markets south of San Francisco. Like most other farmers markets, its main purpose is to provide fresh, seasonal and local produce in the heart of the asphalt-ridden desert of downtown. Mine also happens to offer artisan cheeses, whole grain breads, gourmet chocolates, varieties of coffee, flowers and herbs as well as a couple of regional cuisine and “slow” food stalls where people like to sit and have a leisurely weekend brunch. In fact, a market such as this is a unique ecosystem in itself — but that is a whole other column.
Besides the obvious reasons for preferring to buy from my local farmers market (such as getting fresh, organic produce) and ideological ones (supporting the environment, energy conservation, supporting local farmers and sustainable agricultural practices). I love shopping here as it provides me with an unfailing pulse to the community I live in.
Just the act of sitting under gaily patterned umbrellas in the brilliant Californian sunshine, sipping freshly brewed coffee, errands complete, purchases scattered around them, makes people relax. Even the most privacy-obsessed tend to let their guard down and discuss vexing issues more frankly.
So, over the last month when I began hearing more and more conversations centring on rising prices, falling incomes and the economic slowdown, I sensed the inevitable. People are hurting.
National newspapers had begun talking about an impending economic slowdown almost a year ago, but Californians were as concerned about — and as far removed from — those initial stories as they were from the genocide in Darfur or the war in Iraq. It was almost as if most parts of California and specifically the Bay Area remained magically untouched by the slowdown.
To pick up a newspaper or listen to National Public Radio was to know of foreclosures, steep falls in the value of homes, layoffs, rising unemployment, falling stocks and bailout plans for mortgage companies. Car sales are at a 10-year low due to a weak economy and high fuel prices. Detroit auto makers will lay off 25,000 workers over this summer and fall. Starbucks will close 600 of its ubiquitous stores in the country beginning this year, laying off 12,000 employees, the most in its history, said headlines.
Yet, to look around here was to see a whole different story, an altered reality. The lines of the hiply dressed that I saw at the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto to buy the new iPhone 3G (“twice as fast, half the price”) were no shorter than the lines forming at some private banks in Ohio and Washington state by depositors fearing bankruptcy hurrying to withdraw their money.
This cognitive dissonance between the gloomy outlook highlighted by TheNew York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal over the past year and what I could actually see going on around me continued even when the subprime mortgage crisis began spreading, first insidiously, then juggernaut-like over larger and larger parts of the US.
But until April this year, every time I ran into my realtor at the local market, she would insist that property prices in Palo Alto and neighbouring areas were still rising.
It is only recently that she has amended her view to saying that prices of homes have stabilized. Fewer homes are on the market, but demand is still higher than supply, though the gap is no longer insurmountable in the Valley, she explained to me one morning at a stall of summer greens and salad leaves.
Sitting, overhearing myriad conversations simultaneously last week, I find California no longer remote from worries of a recession. Local home remodels as well as new construction plans are being put on hold; spending is falling. Architects, contractors suddenly have less work, and I even heard a group of young people discussing a recent article in NYT which said cosmetic surgeons who used to be booked up months ahead, now have openings as early as next month — so even Hollywood’s rich and beautiful are feeling the pinch.
And recently, I overheard an elderly couple at the next table talking about how they were getting squeezed at both ends — prices of most items are rising, and falling stock markets are bringing the value of their retirement funds down, affecting their monthly income flow. A young couple with two children, sitting next to them joined in the diatribe, adding that the cost of raising children is driving them to cut down on household help and other “luxuries”, and they are actually considering moving to a smaller house — it is that, or moving to a cheaper suburb in the mid-Peninsula, closer to work.
I have always found these alternatives a bit amusing, but when I saw a pedicab (our own Indian rickshaw)
cruising along side by side with an electric moped, I realized that attaining commuting nirvana is still the first, highest and most common goal for local residents. Recent petrol price highs accelerated many a switch, helped by the natural propensity of Californians to revel in the outdoors, thus combining commuting and exercise, and benefiting both environment and pocket.
On any given weekend, you could always see Bay Area residents getting around on every sort of wheeled device known to man. From regular bikes to the fascinating Penny Farthings and Unicycles, from the tantalizing Segways to the good ole’ Razor scooters, inline skates and Wheelies, from skateboards to their new cousin, the scary, wheeled wave-board, children and adults surfed the streets and pavements, adding their own unique charm to the Californian landscape.
You can still see them, but now not just on weekends and not just for recreational purposes. Today, they have a greater and more useful purpose. People are now using these and other innovative alternatives as a serious means for getting around. It is no longer unusual to see a middle-aged mom Razor scooty-ing to her gym, or a man in a dark suit and tie Segway-ing or skateboarding along to his next meeting. Actually, in this very techie part of the Bay Area, the odd part would be the man’s formal suit and tie, not the Segway or skateboard!
I’ve also noticed many more Zipcars on urban streets in the Bay Area these days. Also more hybrids, including the good old Prius, as well as non-hybrid Smart cars and the occasional Tesla Roadster, the brand new, locally grown, hip, all-electric sports car.
More people are choosing their cars based on mileage alone than at any other time. When fuel prices hit a high of $5 (Rs249) a gallon a few months ago, and SUVs became more infra-dig than ever before, people accelerated their decisions to dump gas-guzzlers in favour of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
In addition to free parking and the carpool lane advantage that hybrids get on the freeways (and the moral advantage that their owners get on the environment highway), these vehicles are making more and more economic sense in a wounded economy.
Now that the economic slowdown sweeping the US has permeated its final frontier, Bay Area residents are stepping up to the challenge with elegant and creative solutions grounded in pragmatism.
In the suburbs where I live, I notice that the population of those cute Global Electric Motor (Gem) cars has gone up—my neighbour down the street has one, and he is definitely smiling more as he whizzes past in this golf-cart type neighbourhood electric vehicle (NEV). I’m not sure if what is making him smile is the rebate that he probably got when he bought his Gemcar or just the liberation from ever having to put a single drop of petrol in that car (the California Air Resources Board offers rebates of up to $5,000 to consumers of alternative fuel vehicles).
But I do know what is making Kelli Glazier—a hip, attractive mom from my son’s school—happy as she drives her Gemcar to school.
“This is the most wonderful car to drive. It is heavenly,” she says when I ask her how she likes it.
“It is so much fun. I absolutely love this car. It makes me happy to drive it; the novelty, the fun, the environmental benefits. It’s awesome,” she says. “I get stopped at least, oh, two or three times a day by people asking about the car!”
Of course, the NEVs aren’t meant for the freeways or more urban areas. But in the suburbs or the neighbouring campus cities of Stanford, Berkeley or Davis, these cars are quickly gaining popularity.
For urban areas, however, the right answer seems to be car-sharing. Zipcar’s tag line, Only there when you want, perhaps explains why I find more of these zipping along when I’m in San Francisco, San Jose or Oakland, the “big city” outposts that define the north, south and east of the Bay Area. Zipcars offer people the Zen-like solution of never owning a car, merely having one when needed.
For those for whom the Zipcar is a mystery, it is really quite simple. Imagine cars parked around the city for members to use to drive by the hour, instead of owning their own vehicles. Zipcars are outfitted with wireless technology, which creates a reservation system for cars which are strategically placed in key locations. This works better in denser urban areas, where night-time garage space as well as day parking, are at a premium.
The Zipcar website says to date, it estimates that it has taken more than 90,000 personally owned vehicles off urban streets, through members surrendering ownership of their vehicles or halting a purchasing decision purely on economic sense. The website helps calculate just how much you would save if, instead of owning your vehicle, you just rented it per hour or day of use, based on return on investment, insurance premium, service, maintenance, parking and fuel costs. Zipcar members have said they save on average at least $435 per month, compared with car ownership—money more likely to be spent locally, another thing this area is big on.
Reality catches up in Bay Area
Conversations are now about rising prices and falling incomes, says this letter from California
Sitting at a makeshift outdoor café in my local farmers market, I had to admit to myself that the slowdown triggered by the subprime mortgage and fuelled by rising international oil prices had now definitely arrived in Palo Alto, California.
Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint
Somehow, the Bay Area has been isolated from the economic slowdown sweeping through the rest of the US, and I believed that the tech-heavy nature of the Silicon Valley would continue to protect this enclave. But, despite technology companies continuing to grow and tech-stocks still holding up, thanks to firms such as Google, Apple and Facebook, the citadel may finally be crumbling.
The ripple effect of the failure of financial companies and hedge funds mainly based in the East Coast has finally reached us here. And Bay Area folks in their typical innovative style have risen to the occasion with elegant and creative solutions grounded in pragmatism.
And how do I know all this? Through my neighbourhood webgroups and my Bay Area online parents club to a large extent, but mostly through the buzz at my local farmers market where I meet real people, not online avatars.
Like most Bay Area suburbs, Palo Alto has its unique farmers market. It began in 1981 and is one of the oldest outdoor farmers markets south of San Francisco. Like most other farmers markets, its main purpose is to provide fresh, seasonal and local produce in the heart of the asphalt-ridden desert of downtown. Mine also happens to offer artisan cheeses, whole grain breads, gourmet chocolates, varieties of coffee, flowers and herbs as well as a couple of regional cuisine and “slow” food stalls where people like to sit and have a leisurely weekend brunch. In fact, a market such as this is a unique ecosystem in itself — but that is a whole other column.
Besides the obvious reasons for preferring to buy from my local farmers market (such as getting fresh, organic produce) and ideological ones (supporting the environment, energy conservation, supporting local farmers and sustainable agricultural practices). I love shopping here as it provides me with an unfailing pulse to the community I live in.
Just the act of sitting under gaily patterned umbrellas in the brilliant Californian sunshine, sipping freshly brewed coffee, errands complete, purchases scattered around them, makes people relax. Even the most privacy-obsessed tend to let their guard down and discuss vexing issues more frankly.
So, over the last month when I began hearing more and more conversations centring on rising prices, falling incomes and the economic slowdown, I sensed the inevitable. People are hurting.
National newspapers had begun talking about an impending economic slowdown almost a year ago, but Californians were as concerned about — and as far removed from — those initial stories as they were from the genocide in Darfur or the war in Iraq. It was almost as if most parts of California and specifically the Bay Area remained magically untouched by the slowdown.
To pick up a newspaper or listen to National Public Radio was to know of foreclosures, steep falls in the value of homes, layoffs, rising unemployment, falling stocks and bailout plans for mortgage companies. Car sales are at a 10-year low due to a weak economy and high fuel prices. Detroit auto makers will lay off 25,000 workers over this summer and fall. Starbucks will close 600 of its ubiquitous stores in the country beginning this year, laying off 12,000 employees, the most in its history, said headlines.
Yet, to look around here was to see a whole different story, an altered reality. The lines of the hiply dressed that I saw at the Apple store in downtown Palo Alto to buy the new iPhone 3G (“twice as fast, half the price”) were no shorter than the lines forming at some private banks in Ohio and Washington state by depositors fearing bankruptcy hurrying to withdraw their money.
This cognitive dissonance between the gloomy outlook highlighted by TheNew York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal over the past year and what I could actually see going on around me continued even when the subprime mortgage crisis began spreading, first insidiously, then juggernaut-like over larger and larger parts of the US.
But until April this year, every time I ran into my realtor at the local market, she would insist that property prices in Palo Alto and neighbouring areas were still rising.
It is only recently that she has amended her view to saying that prices of homes have stabilized. Fewer homes are on the market, but demand is still higher than supply, though the gap is no longer insurmountable in the Valley, she explained to me one morning at a stall of summer greens and salad leaves.
Sitting, overhearing myriad conversations simultaneously last week, I find California no longer remote from worries of a recession. Local home remodels as well as new construction plans are being put on hold; spending is falling. Architects, contractors suddenly have less work, and I even heard a group of young people discussing a recent article in NYT which said cosmetic surgeons who used to be booked up months ahead, now have openings as early as next month — so even Hollywood’s rich and beautiful are feeling the pinch.
And recently, I overheard an elderly couple at the next table talking about how they were getting squeezed at both ends — prices of most items are rising, and falling stock markets are bringing the value of their retirement funds down, affecting their monthly income flow. A young couple with two children, sitting next to them joined in the diatribe, adding that the cost of raising children is driving them to cut down on household help and other “luxuries”, and they are actually considering moving to a smaller house — it is that, or moving to a cheaper suburb in the mid-Peninsula, closer to work.
