It is an interesting thought. Is there a connection between Peak Oil, Urban Sprawl and the current financial market upset? Well, the theory is this: Cheap housing close to work is hard to find. Therefore people accept long distance commuting as an acceptable sacrifice to have a nice home at the edge of a city. Many of these homes are bought by young couples, with questionable credit. So they use the subprime market to finance their investment. The couple is now heavily dependent on the car for almost everything they do. As the gas price goes up, the financial margin shrinks rapidly, and first to suffer are those already having a high degree of cost for their transportation.
It would be interesting to get some data on this if possible, hopefully there will be good analysis and research around soon as this mess unfolds.
