[v.o.M.]
]]>B. Professor Krugman’s comments cut both ways: “Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than trolley cars. Long after today’s streetcars have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in cramped tenements built when tracks were in every major street.”
C. European cities are characteristically comprised of three parts:
1. Ancient inner cores that tourists flood during the summer, and imagine as being typical of Europe.
2. Outer rings of hideous post-war housing towers that look like American public housing interspersed among highways, malls, industrial uses, and ugly things that are Not Supposed To Be In Europe.
3. Preserved greenbelts and farmland. Hands off!
True, the concentration of Euro-housing projects allows for decent public transportation (though usually without air-conditioning) to take people into the hub.
To replicate Europe, New York City would be about a quarter of its present size, and filled with several dozen Co-op Cities. Surrounding, of course, a cute core of cafes filled with cigarette-smoking urbanites who always seem to have too much time on their hands. There would be many trains and buses taking people between the Co-op Cities and Manhattan.
Then there’s the Europe that people forget about, like Kiev, Bucharest, Warsaw, and so forth. Wonderful for transit, all of them — but hardly appealing.
]]>B. Professor Krugman’s comments cut both ways: “Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than trolley cars. Long after today’s streetcars have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in cramped tenements built when tracks were in every major street.”
C. European cities are characteristically comprised of three parts:
1. Ancient inner cores that tourists flood during the summer, and imagine as being typical of Europe.
2. Outer rings of hideous post-war housing towers that look like American public housing interspersed among highways, malls, industrial uses, and ugly things that are Not Supposed To Be In Europe.
3. Preserved greenbelts and farmland. Hands off!
True, the concentration of Euro-housing projects allows for decent public transportation (though usually without air-conditioning) to take people into the hub.
To replicate Europe, New York City would be about a quarter of its present size, and filled with several dozen Co-op Cities. Surrounding, of course, a cute core of cafes filled with cigarette-smoking urbanites who always seem to have too much time on their hands. There would be many trains and buses taking people between the Co-op Cities and Manhattan.
Then there’s the Europe that people forget about, like Kiev, Bucharest, Warsaw, and so forth. Wonderful for transit, all of them — but hardly appealing.
]]>At the same time, individual drivers do not have to behave responsibly in their driving patterns because the costs are distributed to society and other drivers.
The opportunity costs of the land these roads sit on is enormous! Highway advocates tend to neglect land cost when arguing in favor of automobile use vs transit. Highways also impose negative externalities on nearby land owners.
Indeed, zoning and parking is the other culprit.
]]>At the same time, individual drivers do not have to behave responsibly in their driving patterns because the costs are distributed to society and other drivers.
The opportunity costs of the land these roads sit on is enormous! Highway advocates tend to neglect land cost when arguing in favor of automobile use vs transit. Highways also impose negative externalities on nearby land owners.
Indeed, zoning and parking is the other culprit.
]]>