As to the relative absence of transit urban and regional planning - this is a multi-layered problem as well. Some of it is lack of funding, but a great deal of it is public opposition to transit projects, most of it for thinly veiled racist reasons. I worked for local government and attended enough public hearings to know that for a fact. Housing and transit are two main pillars of the US informal apartheid system.
Wojtek
On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> [WS:] Actually, the "unconventional" oil reserves are much larger than
>> a conventional ones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum
>> At $100+ per barrel for WTI (or $115+ for Brent) the prospect of
>> extracting these unconventional resources looks 'economical." So from
>> that standpoint, the oil reserves are not likely to "peak" any time
>> soon.
>>
>> Otoh, extracting "unconventional" oil is a far dirtier than the
>> conventional one - so the prospect of trashing the planet is far
>> greater. However, that has never been a consideration if the money
>> is to be made or if the Americans will have to move their lazy asses
>> out of their cars.
>>
>> Wojtek
>
>
> Worthwhile, until the end. The voluntarism of laziness is sociologically
> and politically problematic. Car culture, at this point, is utterly and
> completely embedded in the built environment of the US just as mass transit
> was built out of it and bike/walking routes were never built in.
> Furthermore, the laziness argument suggests that, somehow, all those folks
> taking mass transit around the world are less lazy. Living in and around DC
> you are surely aware that where there is good mass transit in the US people
> almost everywhere use it very intensively... often to the point of degrading
> the experience if not the public resource itself. And yet neither urban or
> regional development plans usually include aggressive expansion of mass
> transit through existing development or as a component of urban renewal or
> new development. Last, I know any number of people who use their cars all
> the time and work out, whether running or biking on the roads or on hills or
> in gyms, pools, fields or court complexes (public or private) like fiends -
> they work hard and play hard, its not about laziness its about regional
> growth machines and national power relations.
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>