> I'm not sure about the etiquette of quoting and linking here, but
> somebody on a different list had some interesting things to say about
> choice:
>
> <http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.asp?Filename=internet-bob.10403.0991.eml>
> ---------------------------------------
> > The notion of "Urban Sprawl" is a fairly recent onem, and comes, I think
> > from a mistaken idea: That high-density European city centers can, and
> > should be a model for the relatively low density American cities.
>
> Definitions of sprawl are fluid, and the s-word is undoubtedly favored by
> those of us who don't like it. But the phenomenon of decentralization of
> urban populations has been recognized ever since horsecars, if not before.
>
>
> (Moreover, the model offered by sprawl critics has little to do with
> "high-density European city centers," though this image does provide a
> convenient bogeymen for those who see sprawl critique as a conspiracy to
> infect the U.S. with old-world evils like socialism, gun control,
> single-payer health care--and, of course, subsidized public transportation.
>
> Sprawl's defenders prefer to bash the European pinata rather than attack
> American models of urban density, such as inner-ring suburbs and small
> towns, precisely because Americans are pretty warm to these urban forms.)
>
> > fact that people might regularly commute 40 or 50 or 60 miles to work
> > says far less about "sprawl" than it does people's preferences and the
> > relatively greater freedom people in this country have in choosing a
> > place to live.
>
> This strikes me as a somewhat optimistic view. I like living in walkable,
> bikable, public-transportation-friendly towns and cities. If it were all
> about choice, there would be no shortage of such places, and developers
> would be falling over themselves to build them. But it isn't, and they
> don't, because they aren't allowed to. As sprawl-critic James Howard
> Kunstler points out, you can't build Main Street USA anymore. It's not
> legal. Sprawl is legal and sanctioned, and so sprawl is what you get.
>
> >I'm not sure I'm ready to start telling people where they're allowed to
> >live.
>
> Where I'm allowed to live doesn't really matter. I'm allowed to live next
> door to Sammy Sosa in Lake Point Tower if I can come up with the bucks, but
> those of us who don't pull the $10 million a year that Sammy gets have
> markedly fewer choices, and they're all very interconnected, enough so that
> there's really not that much choice at all.
>
> We have a modest choice in where we want to work, though depending on the
> economy, this is a very modest choice, especially in the short term, when
> it often comes down to be there or get fired.
>
> We have a modest choice in where we can live, and that choice involves
> trade-offs between a variety of amenities, including obvious ones like
> square footage, backyard acreage, and type of countertops as well as less
> obvious ones, like transportation infrastructure and public schools, both
> of which tend to be bundled into the cost of housing. Most of us want lots
> of interior space, a big backyard, fine schools, convenient shopping, a 5
> minute trip to work and a minimal number of gunshots in the area, all for
> $200 a month or less. Since that's rarely available, we bargain down
> accordingly.
>
> Lastly, we have a very, very, very modest choice in how we can travel to
> work and back home and everywhere else we need to go. You can drive, or
> you can...well, for most of the country, that's pretty much it. If you
> choose to drive, you'll find a fair amount of costly infrastructure, all
> yours for the admission price of whatever it costs you to buy a licensible
> vehicle. If you choose to bike, you'll get a small sliver of that
> infrastructure, on the right hand margin, with a cacophony of honks in your
> ear. And if you choose to walk, in most places, you'll get nowhere,
> because there's nowhere you can go to in the time it takes you to get
> there.
>
> It's tough enough for most people to optimize any one of these. Housing and
> employment are touch choices for anyone. By the time you add
> transportation to the mix, there's very little choice, and no meaningful
> choice. The choice is no longer how to get from point A to point B. It's
> only a matter of how far you want to drive, or how far you'll have to
> drive. Whether or not you're driving is moot, 'cause you're driving. Too
> old? Stay home, or call your kid, and get your kid to drive you. Too
> young? Stay home and play in the streets, or get mom to drive you? Can't
> operate a vehicle because of a visual or physical impairment? Get somebody
> to drive you.
>
> > For an interesting debate on the topic, see:
> > http://www.perc.org/pdf/feb99.pdf
>
> Of course, there are those folks who argue, as do Bast, Gordon et al, that
> we want is what we get and vice versa. I don't buy it, precisely because
> the costs and prices of sprawling are so thoroughly interconnected, bundled
> and buried. Wanna live on the urban fringe, work in the suburbs and drive
> 20 miles to work? No problem. The road's already there and already paid
> for. You've got pavement from door to door, a zoning-mandated parking
> space at work and a zoning-mandated parking space at your $80,000 starter
> home ($500 a month, low down payment, interest deductible). Gas is cheap,
> and the government's made it clear that they'll go to war to ensure a
> steady supply of it. Drive as much as you want, and don't worry about the
> air. Not your problem.
>
> Ah, but maybe you want to live in the big city? Or maybe a walkable,
> bikable small town? Somewhere where you can *choose* not to drive, if
> that's your style.
>
> First you have to find one. They don't build 'em anymore, so they go for a
> premium. You'll have to figure out how to get to your job, which is
> probably all the way out in the burbs, like most jobs are. (Sears, as
> local folks know, left their namesake tower years ago. They're now
> inconveniently located in the suburbs. Their move was subsidized by state
> monies.) You'll get last-choice public schools, so if you decide to stay
> with your kids, you may pony up for private schools.
>
> Sure, it's a choice. And you could choose to live in the burbs, among the
> asphalt. But it's fairly clear, to me at least, that about 7 decades of
> public policy momentum has combined to arrange for a forest of sticks and a
> crop of carrots that incentivize people to live in sprawl.
>
> And it's not that it's necessarily an awful way to live. It's just that if
> it's so great, why is it subsidized to the hilt? And if city density is so
> awful, why do so many people pay a premium to live in it?
>
> I could suggest a conspiracy theory or three about the costs, embedded
> subsidies, prices and incentives of our current transportation and land use
> system, but I don't think it's that malicious. People are just used to it
> and don't know any better. And if they dare to dream of something just a
> little better--a bus that stops at their curb so they don't have to drive
> absolutely everywhere, or maybe a few second-story apartments above the
> stores--they're simultaneously told that a) density is nasty and European,
> and b)sprawl is all-American, and not just that, it's your Choice!!!
>
> And sure, it's a choice. It's a choice like your choice of food at the
> freeway exit is a choice. You can choose between a Big Mac at McDonald's
> and a Whopper at BK's. And if you pose the question of whether that's a
> meaningful choice, particularly if you pose it to someone who's never eaten
> anything but burgers at freeway exits, it's probably understandable if you
> then were met with the subtle suspicion that you're trying to tell people
> what to eat.
> ---------------------------------
>
> --
> Andy
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
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