Speaking of High Gas Prices, and the Best Outside of Phillly

A discussion on PhillyBlog.com's thriving "Burbs" forum is a good starting point for exploring how oil and gas hikes do affect surbubanites. Some on the forum say they have saved as much as $900 a month by moving back onto city transit lines, but one contributor writes, "I drove 300 miles today. This trip cost me $3.50 more than it would have cost months ago, and my car is a gas hog which runs on premium." Still another cites urban planner Joel Kotkin's op-ed from May, suggesting that, whatever the real cost of car commuting, suburbanites won't likely move into the city to be closer to their jobs, since their jobs, for the most part, are in the suburbs.

Another thread on the same forum asks: Which is the best—and worst—Philadelphia suburbs? In 15 pages of responses, the favorites, by our informal count, are Media, in Pennsylvania, and Collingswood on the New Jersey side, with Jenkintown, Pa. a close runner-up. Bensalem gets roundly booed.

Interestingly, many upscale towns like Wayne, Pa., are dissed and many lower-class places are given high marks. What earned a suburb high marks? One poster sums it up: "City shopping and density for a couple blocks, suburban homes for the rest."