One metro area's mess is another area's opportunity.

So it goes with sprawl, the post-cheap-oil age and the sub-prime real estate fiasco. On the one hand, you could argue that it was the height of foolishness (or devilishness) to grant barely-passable mortgages to people who wanted big houses on the suburban fringes and who really didn't have the money to afford it. All the while the price of a barrel of oil flirted with the $100 mark, making it even more foolish to buy too much house too far away from work.

Conversely, you could argue that all of these seemingly bad signs actually point to something good, something with a lot of opportunity ahead. And although Washington state, bolstered by pretty steady job growth, a healthy tech sector and predictable land-use laws, is faring much better than others in light of the sub-prime fallout and battered credit market, it is worth your while to read this Washington Post op-ed piece by property and land-use law professor Eduardo M. Penalver, who argues that sky-high oil prices, tightened lending standards and the consequent withdrawal from sprawl foreshadows a long-term trend that bodes well for new real estate markets and city-center development.

Penalver argues that "American sprawl was built on the twin pillars of low gas prices and a relentless demand for housing that, combined with the effects of restrictive zoning in existing suburbs, pushed new development outward toward cheap rural land."

In the past, builders "would have bided their time until the housing market recovered," Penalver writes, but "persistently high gas prices may mean that the next building boom will take place not at the edges of metropolitan areas but far closer to their cores. People are more willing to drive 20 miles each way to work every day, burning a couple of gallons of gas in the process, when gas costs less than milk. But as gas prices climb, long car commutes become a rising tax on exurban homeownership, and the price people are willing to pay for homes in remote areas will fall."

In Washington state, where efforts have long been under way to redevelop city cores, Penalver's point might mean that our state's efforts have been far-sighted and will only be helped by what many other metro areas view only as a problem.