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Rising gas prices are a growing threat to the American way of life

As gas prices continue to rise, Americans could be forced to transform how they drive, spend, and where they live.

For the last few years, Americans have enjoyed friendly prices at the pump. And in many ways consumers’ lives have been shaped by these prices.

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People have bought bigger cars, traveled more, and spent more money in general.

But nothing lasts forever and rising gas prices could mean big changes for the American way of life.

According to GasBuddy.com, gas prices could reach a three-year high in 2017. And in the long-term, gas prices are likely to climb back up to record levels, experts say.

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"There may not be a giant hike, but I do think eventually gas prices could return to record levels, maybe not in the next year or two...but it’s just a matter of time," Patrick DeHaan, a senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, told Business Insider. "Global demand is on the uptick because of low oil prices so that would tell us that demand is increasing, but oil production has not really followed to that degree."And as gas prices continue to rise, Americans could be forced to transform how they drive, spend, and where they live.

Since gas prices began falling in the last quarter of 2014, Americans have increasingly strayed from buying more fuel-efficient passenger cars and instead opted for larger pick-up trucks, SUVs, and crossovers.

In fact, SUV and crossovers accounted for 40% of US market share in 2016 versus 34.7% in 2014, according to IHS. The market share for sedans, on the other hand, decreased from 36.2% in 2014 to 31.1% in 2016.

"Gasoline prices have been higher for a longer time there, so people drive smaller much more fuel efficient cars and you would expect to see similar patterns in the United States," she said.

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Americans have actually made this shift before. In July 2008, gas prices reached record highs of about $4 a gallon and almost immediately consumers made a dramatic move to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

"Almost overnight fuel efficiency became a very important factor in what kind of cars Americans were looking at. And that could happen again,” DeHaan said.

One of the biggest things people quickly change when gas prices go up is their discretionary spending, Morris said.

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As the cost of gas increases, some homes may become worth more than others.

In fact, according to a 2014 study done by Morris and Helen Neill of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a 10% increase in gas prices can mean a 2% price bump for homes closer to a city center.

Homes further from a metropolitan hub, though, saw about a 1% drop in home value, according to the study.

To calculate this correlation, Morris and Neill used data from 930,702 home sales in the Las Vegas area for a span of more than 30 years. Morris said that home prices were most likely to decline if they were located more than half an hour outside a metropolitan area.

"The pivot point in our data, for this particular city, was about a 30-minute commute. So if your house was in an area where your commuting time was less than 30 minutes you were more likely having home prices going up when house prices go up," Morris said. "But if it was more than 30 minutes, your home prices were more likely to go down when gasoline prices go up."

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This area outside of suburbs, which is often referred to as the "suburban fringe," was most affected when gas prices soared in 2008 and the housing crisis hit.

"If you look at the walkable urban neighborhoods, during the great recession, the housing prices basically went flat. Maybe they went down 10%, but they basically went flat," Christopher B. Leinberger, the chairman of the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at George Washington University, told Business Insider.

"The drivable suburban fringe, relying upon cheap gas prices, had by far felt the biggest impact of price declines," Leinberger said.

For example, Leinberger said that houses in the suburban fringe surrounding the DC metro area saw home values drop as much as 60% percent from peak home prices, while homes in suburban areas closer to the city saw a drop of about half that.

Of course, gas prices were not the sole factor influencing home prices in 2008. The mortgage crisis sent the housing market into a tailspin and home values across the nation fell. But high gas prices do affect peoples' preferences, and when prices at the pump are soaring, people simply don't want to live as far out.

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"Over the longer run, we know that gasoline prices can shift the prices for different types of cars and even people's patterns of living and commuting," Morris said. "Prices matter and people respond to prices and if gasoline prices go up and stay up then certain consumption patterns are harder to sustain and people are going to make other choices."

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