Traffic: There must be some kind of way outta here

Said Annie Lowrey to the thief. Hot right now on Slate.com is Annie Lowrey's blunt analysis of commuting to and from work. It's something that should be said more often: It's awful. And it's costing more than just money.

How much? Lowrey cites a study from a Swedish university that tied longer commuting to higher divorce rates. And that's just in Sweden. Our traffic is about a million times worse. Lowrey collects other evidence based on surveys in the United States that confirm the obvious. Workers who have longer commutes are less happy and less healthy than those who spend less time in a car (also known in rush hour as the isolated cage of immobility). And if you think being in rush hour contributes to immobility, there's also a disturbing correlation between these commutes and our nation's obesity crisis.

I do not think this is the utopia that Henry Ford envisioned.

What can be done to solve this problem? Lowrey puts the blame on homeowners. Apparently, we've just been duped by cunning real estate agents. Apparently, "drive until you qualify" isn't an obnoxious put-down, it's a clever ad technique!

There is a problem with this analysis. It ignores the fact that there are homes to be had at incredibly low prices not far from the urban core. They are called slums. Or Ghettos. But they are houses that can be purchased for the price of a typical down-payment on a suburban house. Understandably, most middle-class families don't want to live in high crime areas with over-crowded schools. Fair enough. That's why it's time for an aggressive policy change.

Places like Detroit, Michigan and Hartford, Connecticut cannot wait for the same kind of gentrification that Brooklyn was fortunate enough to encounter in the last ten years. These communities need to made livable now.

The United States should enact a tax on retail gasoline based on the concept of a price floor, such that the cost of gasoline will never fall below a certain amount. For the sake of argument, let's say that the cost of regular unleaded gasoline will be fixed at $4.50 per gallon. If gas normally costs $3.20 per gallon, the tax would be $1.30 per gallon. If gas were to retail to $2.75 per gallon, the tax would be $1.75 per gallon. If the cost of gas were to spike suddenly and gas were to retail at or above $4.50 per gallon, the tax would be suspended.

Finally! A practical use for the Canyonero!

Funds acquired from the tax would be set aside for the strict use of rehabilitating dilapidated houses. The Department of Housing and Urban Development could purchase the homes, employ contractors to make them safe and livable, then sell the homes back to the general public at the original cost, plus operating expenses. Simply put, if it costs HUD $30,000 to refurbish a house that cost $20,000, HUD would sell the house for $50,000.

The benefit of such a program is obvious. The United States was caught flat-footed in 2008 and again to a slightly lesser extent this year when retail gas skyrocketed, whereas European nations where more able to absorb the cost as they have been accustomed to better mass transit and more fuel efficient vehicles. This would also provide soften the blow at the gas pump in the event of future price spikes.

Brookyln, pre and post gentrification. A little elbow grease could rebuild other cities.

The other benefit is that our communities can be made whole again. You might not have noticed it, but Chicago lost 200,000 residents in the last ten years. To put that in perspective, 204,000 is the listed population of Richmond, Virginia. And these people didn't leave due to lack of affordable housing in Chicago (check out this 4 bedroom 2 bathroom for just $24,150). They left because they don't want their kids to get shot at on the way to and from school. Quite frankly, I don't blame them.

But we can fix this problem. We put a man on the moon for no other reason than because we felt like it (and to do it before the Russians did). Therefore, we can give jobs to inner-city youth to fix houses and sell these homes back to the public. It's a jobs program. It's a public safety program. It's an environmental conservation program. Virtually every Democratic core constituency would support such a program, and even General Motors expressed support for the concept of a price floor for gasoline.

The time to start such a program is now. And while Obama maybe too timid to actually start solving our domestic problems, such a plan could easily win approval at the state level.

Haste makes waste, let's get this party started!