Gasoline is putting the brakes on the choices you thought you had about where to live.

Scientists recently revealed how burning fossil fuels, like gasoline, contributes to climatic change.

Climate change can spawn severe weather conditions that force you to think twice about where to live.

It's not just the fear of the roof being blown off, burned away or snowed under.

Extra costs are associated with living in a natural disaster risk area -- more robust buildings, higher insurance premiums, higher home energy costs and disaster preparedness, to name a few.

Now, the cost of gasoline -- averaging $4 a gallon nationwide -- is further reducing the choices you have about where to live.

A recent Coldwell Banker Associates Report, "Interest in Urban Homeownership Fueled by Higher Gas Prices", found that the vast majority of sales associates' clients -- 78 percent -- said the rising cost of gas has increased their desire to live in the city instead of the suburbs.

More than 80 percent of them said that's because, with the higher cost of gasoline, the commute is just killing their household budget. They want to be closer to work centers or the public transit that can take them there.

Urban development, inline with mitigating global warming, is typically more compact, more densely populated with both people and destinations, more walkable and generally easier to traverse for less via public transit.

Urban cores also tend to be nearer job centers and community and cultural centers. From city center it's often a lot easier to get from Point A to Point B for a fraction of the cost of a gallon of gasoline.

It the Coldwell Banker survey, 75 percent also said the basic prospect of being able to walk to more places is a positive factor. And there's a positive health factor that comes with walking.

Coldwell Banker's survey also found an 84 percent spike in interest for properties with a home office, another indication of a trend towards telecommuting, getting out of those gasoline burners and having more money to spend at home and for the home.

Global warming-sensitive planners and developers as well as consumers, more and more often seek urban living-style development -- even in the suburbs -- for a host of reasons from a healthier, walkable, more energy efficient environments to cheaper development costs, less impact on the infrastructure and closer knit communities.

See the series "Global Warming Hits Home" only available on DeadlineNews.Com.

Published: July 1, 2008

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.