With both the incentive and the ability to move long distances gone, families and friends would stay in the same community through several generations. Children would see grandparents daily or weekly instead of just on holidays. Grade-school friends would grow into adulthood together and raise their own children side-by-side. Over a few decades, social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace would wither and die from lack of demand.
Not only would one's spirit benefit from strong family relationships and friendships, one's body would benefit from several changes. The first and most obvious change is the exercise that would come from walking or riding bicycles or horses everywhere. The Center for Disease Control says that even a moderate amount of physical activity can: prevent obesity, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes, strengthen muscles and bones, and improve your mental health (Physical Activity, 2010, para.1). Since $1 of every $10 spent on health care in the United States is spent treating just Type 2 diabetes (Pallarito, 2008, para.2), a sudden increase in the activity level of the general population could save millions upon millions of dollars, in addition to creating a happier and healthier country.
The second health change that would occur would concern the American diet. At the moment, the standard American diet relies heavily on processed food loaded with preservatives to withstand shipping and long periods on grocery shelves. Even the produce found on most grocery shelves has been treated with chemicals to retard decomposition, allowing them to be trucked all over the continent and beyond. In the absence of trucks, such a diet would be impossible, not to mention unnecessary. People would rely primarily on local, seasonal foods grown and raised by people in their communities. Corporate agriculture would crumble, and the country would see a return of the small, privately-run farm producing healthy, fresh food.
On the surface, all of these changes seem to be pointing towards Steiner's utopian vision of strong communities of healthy, engaged citizens, but there are many pitfalls to be considered as well. The lack of ability to travel a distance...
If I had a love for playing the cello, but lived in a rural community with few other musicians and no exposure to professional orchestras, any talent I might have could never reach its full potential. Likewise if I wanted to be a geneticist, but lived nowhere near an educational institution or genetics lab where I could learn and train, I would be unlikely to fulfill that dream.
A more serious downfall of this new society would be a decline in multiculturalism and a return to homogenized societies. As the cultural enclaves within small communities intermingled more out of economic necessity, ethnic differences would gradually disappear along with their unique traditions. While there would be some benefits to this, we would lose the tremendous gains we have made in acceptance and understanding during this current era of multiculturalism, and would run the risk of returning to strong prejudices and fears of other cultures.
Overall, a change like this, though traumatic at first, would be beneficial to society as a whole if and only if we were able to retain the lessons we've learned during the age of cheap and easy travel, and if we can find creative ways to pursue our goals and realize our dreams without reaching for the car keys.
Works Cited
Benton, Joe. (2008, July 2). Record $4-plus Gas Prices Greet July 4 Holiday. Consumer Affairs. Retrieved May 26, 2010 from http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news
04/2008/07/gas_prices275.html.
McCosh, Dan. (2000, May). Hydrogen on Wheels. Popular Science, 52-67.
Newman, David M. (2009). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Pallarito, Karen. (2008, May 6). How the Costs of Type 2 Diabetes Add Up. Health. Retrieved May 27, 2010 from http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20189170,00.html.
Poor, Jeff. (2009, July 25). Forbes Writer Warns of $20 Gas; Envisions a Utopia Nearly Without Cars. NewsBusters. Retrieved May 26, 2010 from http://newsbusters.
org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/07/25/.
