We might argue whether they were good (I disagree) but I cannot agree that they were ever _necessary_ as an energy source. Viable alternatives exist and have existed for the entire duration of their use as a form of energy; and the story of oil-as-energy is the story of human suffering in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; without oil there would not be wars over oil, there would be healthier populations, and (likely) climate change would be less of a concern.

Health care is more efficiently delivered to higher density populations. Low density populations increase the time to access health care, which increases the risk of delivering emergency care but it also encumbers access to primary care with the associated access time. Suburban areas are a great deal more expensive in terms of health care delivery.

Consider that in the absence of suburbanization there is decreased demand for energy. Higher density housing is cheaper to service overall, but also provides greater efficiency in accessing services. The reduced efficiency of suburban residences _requires_ the existence of high density forms of readily accessible and consumable energy; it simply isn't viable to build an American suburb without cheap energy, because it is a hideously inefficient model.

But other models _do_ exist, and _are_ successful. The suburb can die and society will be better off for it.

There are places that do. Here in Canada there are at least two provinces that subsist almost entirely off of hydro, and have for the better part of a century. Both export huge amounts of electricity to the USA.

And we have active political conflict between big oil and everyone else, where there seems to be an insatiable demand for socializing the externalities of oil and gas while receiving public funding to make oil production competitive and market viable. In that manner, it places itself in front of efforts to use literally anything else.

If oil and gas had never received a single dollar of public funding, including by way of public funding for externalities that support or recover from oil and gas, then it never would have been market viable as an energy source in places where it doesn't seep out of the soil. Roads would not have been paved, power plants would not have been built, suburbs would only exist for the very wealthy.

We had rapid social progress _despite_ suburbanization. It never came to pass that we could assume that every household had a car, there was always a statistically significant urban populations that preferred transit, and delivery of public services is less efficient with lower density populations.

I happen to believe that we would be a healthier, happier society if suburbanization had never occurred. If we walked more, and had better access to the services we need, then we'd be healthier and happier. And it would be cheaper to deliver services.

The solution, in the absence of oil, would be to simply build more hydro and wind. Neither are particularly difficult technologies. Where they would have lagged in efficiency they make up for in simplicity.

Distributing electricity isn't easy, but it also isn't particularly insurmountable. We had to solve it even with oil as a source of electrical generation.