[lbo-talk] the petro-thusians have their moment

[Michael Dawson]

Hasn't the engine of suburbanization, on the demand side, been mostly simple
economics?  For the price of an urban rent, a huge swath of the population
has been able to buy a detached house with a yard that is at low risk of
losing its resale value.  Suburban houses are cheap per square foot,
relative to equal-quality urban space.  Right?  Of course, being suburban
makes owning a car mandatory, but, again, doesn't that still make it cheaper
to go to the burbs than to try to buy expensive urban housing?

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Wojtek Sokolowski
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 9:57 AM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] the petro-thusians have their moment

Jon:
> The trouble is that, unlike Europeans, apparently, Americans have a
> very deep-seated urge to flee from areas of large population
> concentration to low-concentration ones. Perhaps this is a hold-over of
> the old pioneer longing to "light out for the territory." But it makes
> it much harder to provide public transit for most of the population.
> Somehow, one would have to persuade the people who fled the cities to
> move back; a few are doing so, but the overall trend is still massively
> in the other direction. Makes no sense to me, but I'm a very untypical
> American.

Many (if not most) Americans flee cities precisely because they feel
threatened by the complexity, the lack of cocoons - they have to deal with
people different then themselves in public places - and yes, public
transportation.  I heard that opinion times and again, especially in PA -
people are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid taking public
transit.  For example, my wife co-worker gave up a day off to avoid going
from H'burg to Philly on a train (2 hour direct connection!) - she left one
day earlier just to be able to ride in a company car with my wife.  This is
not an isolated case - most middle Americans hate cities, public places and
public transit - hence their cocoon seeking behavior.

Wojtek

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