06-11-2022, 10:54 AM
(10-07-2021, 11:39 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Some of us discuss technology; some of us discuss technology; some of us discuss engineering projects. The automobile as a one-size-fits-all solution to middle-class travel (except in New York City, where personal automobiles are restricted due to costs of parking and garage space to at the least the upper middle class) is such because of the huge investment in infrastructure to accommodate it, with such infrastructure committing people to the automobile in part because the automobile renders other transportation (such as bicycles, scooters, and vehicles resembling golf carts) too dangerous for such use.Paragraph by paragraph response, followed by my own 2c.
Railroads would have been wise to collaborate with the rental-car business; railroads were competing with highway travel and had such advantages as safety. The private vehicle offered flexibility once near the destination. This of course was before air travel became the norm for long-distance travel.
Air travel is even less efficient in fuel than private automobiles... but far safer and swifter. It was originally a luxury, but it is now more efficient than driving an automobile more than about 200 miles. If your ultimate destination is less between 20 and 100 miles or you have multiple stops, then one might as well rent a car. Rental cars are of course cars that one does not own.
Transportation is inseparable from housing. In the last forty years we have had some of the most perverse social policies in housing... zoning that requires quarter-acre lots prices multitudes into very bad housing or even homelessness. Stalinist-style housing blocks (such as Pruitt-Igoe) might fit people accustomed to facing imprisonment if they gripe about anything in the "Workers' and Farmers' State" or such a right-wing nightmare as Pinochet's Chile. For basic dignity it is best that we solve our 'housing problem' some way other than building prison-like warehouses for poor people who actually do the work and punish them for ingratitude for being priced out of anything else. The freedom to complain about inadequacies in life is essential if we are to do anything to relieve people of those inadequacies.
I expect much real estate to be 'repurposed' to accommodate higher densities of population. Much of what we have is ideal for an America with half its current population, and then less concentrated geographically. We need to revitalized cities that globalization has ravaged. The neoliberal ideology of the last forty years has basically rewarded people for being rich and well-connected and punished people for being poor. To suggest that neoliberal ideal will further entrench itself and make life harsher for anyone not already rich ignores the egalitarian trend in Millennial and likely Homeland ideology. To be sure, X learned quickly to suffer with a smile on the job and endorse the reactionary politics of bosses and owners while on company property... but they griped about work to their Millennial and Homeland children (and still do), which may explain why people under 40 so reject the plutocratic order that we now have.
The last 1T demonstrated a large investment in affordable housing. with huge tracts of farmland and orange groves becoming huge tracts of single-family housing. Much of that housing has approached the end of the service life of it as well as the infrastructure (schools, streets, and sewers) that allowed millions to live like the fictional Ward Cleaver family of early television. .
I expect housing patterns to change. I expect vehicles to change -- with electric vehicles and vehicles that drive themselves. (You will submit to giving responsibility for driving a car to a very smart computer just to keep your auto insurance rate from becoming prohibitive).
P1: Bicycle riding has picked up within the last few years. Chicago has many dedicated bicycle lanes. True that the fetish for blown-up highway funds nearly starved out alternatives such as passenger rail and the long-distance bus model highlighted by firms such as Greyhound (leave the driving to us). A Chicago Tribune editorial way back in 1993 stated that back when the interstate highways were built, we had no serious economic competition, therefore we could afford to be wasteful. We no longer can, so let's stop making like we are still living in the 1950s. We may no longer be living like "Leave it to Beaver", but the fetish for the car culture and single family homes hasn't seem to have budged much. Only difference may be that car owners no longer seem to be giving their cars (mostly female) pet names, such as Miss Linda B.
P2: There is some variation of this in what some call the "Kiss and Ride" programs where one spouse might drop the other off at the train station and then head home or to wherever. Single people most likely would have to park and ride, and there are designated areas for that. We might initiate a discussion on whether high-speed rail will ever really take off here in the US.
P3: While I haven't flown since 2007, I have rented cars a few times since, last in May of last year to travel to Michigan. I am right outside of Chicago and drive an older car that I have had a lot of work put into. Therefore if I need to travel outside of the local area I would invest in renting a car to avoid the possibility of a breakdown in the middle of nowhere. But there is currently a severe shortage of rental cars available. Just heard that yesterday.
P4: This one falls into the "don't get me started" category. Ever since the late 1980s the nature of our job and housing markets has helped to create a homeless problem which seems to continually grow more acute. California probably is the worst culprit, and one saving grace is the fact that they don't need to experience the bitter cold winters found in much of the rest of the country. We need to expand Right to Shelter laws. Currently MA is the only entire state that has it, along with NYC. A Reddit piece recently stated that the time has come for us to end our love affair with single family homes. But the true paramour here might be government zoning commissions and home owners' associations. I feel that if nothing else rooming houses need to come back. This would go a long way toward alleviating the problem.
P5: Another one in the "don't get me started" genre. First sentence described something that went on back in the seemingly placid postwar era. Especially with what was then known as Urban Renewal. When much poor yet mostly liveable housing was destroyed and not enough replacement housing was offered. And let's not forget all the folks who lost their homes to make way for the Interstate highways. Many jurisdictions are eager to employ the power of eminent domain to force people from their homes to make way for more upscale develoopments to private developers. This was largely ignored until a Connecticut woman, Suzette Kelo, had the audacity to sock it to 'em so to speak. She got to keep her pink house but it was moved to a new location. And as of a couple of years ago the land the house and others were forcibly taken from continued to sit empty and undeveloped. As a result, Ms. Kelo became what, in a thread on the original forum, referred to as an accidental celebrity. A movie was even made based on her story. The rest of P5 more or less self-explanatory IMO.
P6: I grew up in that time and there wasn't much talk of insufficient or unaffordable housing. But the Levittown style development were the precursors of the so-called McMansions we now see. Most likely none of the primary posters here will live long enough to see it, but one day many of these might be the next generation of flop houses.
P7: Falls into the we shall see category. Part of me hopes that the SDCs won't appear until after I am gone from this earth.
My2c: With gas approaching 6 dollars a gallon in many places, just yesterday I ask the woman behind the convenience store whether she has seen any drop in consumption due to the record high prices, and she replied with an emphatic "No Sirree"! She refused to discuss the issue any further though. What do you feel the tipping point will be? 10 dollars, or even more? Have we gone beyond our love affair with cars and now consider them just as a necessary evil for most? Having to have a car is, after all, a huge financial burden. Not only the escalating cost of gas, but also insurance which is required by law nearly everywhere, maintenance, licensing, parking in many locales, and since most folks have to buy their cars on time, there is also financing. Plus the cost of the car itself.