[lbo-talk] A Case for a Higher Gasoline Tax

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> > You misunderstand the problem.  The problem is not that workers  
> moved
> > away from cities while businesses stayed put, making commutes long.
> > The problem is that both businesses and workers moved away from
> > cities, decentralizing both production and reproduction.
> >
> > Much of employment in the United States by now is in the service
> > sector (retail, office work, education, etc.), and that's what needs
> > to move back to cities first and foremost.
>
> In smaller and midsize cities the problem can be much worse. Retail  
> establishments are scattered all over the place on the outskirts of  
> the original city. So for the kind of shopping that once could be  
> done by going downtown (by car or public transportation) and  
> walking from store to store now can require 5, 10, or more miles of  
> driving around from one strip mall to another.
>
> Carrol

What kind of capitalism is it if makes _shopping_, allegedly the  
quintessentially capitalist experience, such a pain in the ass?

There is nothing good you can say about strip malls.  Even Walter  
Benjamin, the bard of commodity fetishism, would have been stumped by  
them.

Even New York City -- the most city-like cities in America -- isn't  
very good at being a city of commodity fetishists (except its  
splendid variety of eating establishments).  You walk blocks and  
blocks, and you wonder, where are bookstores and movie theaters (cf.  
"Independent stores have closed as national chains have expanded. In  
the five years ended in 1997, the number of bookstores in New York  
City fell by 19 percent, to 241 stores, according to the Census  
Bureau's data" [Sabrina Tavernise, "Know Neighborhoods by Their Book  
Buying," 28 June 2004, <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/28/nyregion/ 
28books.html? 
ex=1246248000&en=6f7b48a799ef205b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt>])?

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>