The New Urbanism

[GothTalk]

In 10-15 years.

Lie 50 years ago, still a lie.

And if it turns out to not be a lie? I'll blast em' all with corn juice.

And no, electric cars are no practical substitute for gasoline, and hydrogen fuel cells appear to be a dead end.

I never said they were.

I asked why cars would no longer be an option.

 

[jomar]

Planned communities ultimately fail, for approximately the same reason that socialism fails. Central planning by an elite manager class always fails. Communities that survive grow organically. They are living organisms.

Seems like I read that if they can last for 5 years they tend to last.

It is not possible for electric vehicles to replace gasoline-powered vehicles on the scale we have been using them.

Why not?

 

[pecksniff]

The endless technological innovations made since the industrial revolution began have perhaps seduced people into assuming that technology can solve any problem it creates, if the market is left free to respond to demand. But, just because there is economic incentive to do something, does not mean it is physically possible. If ExxonMobil's corporate life depended on inventing a faster-than-light drive, ExxonMobil would go bankrupt.

 

[GothTalk]

The endless technological innovations made since the industrial revolution began have perhaps seduced people into assuming that technology can solve any problem it creates, if the market is left free to respond to demand. But, just because there is economic incentive to do something, does not mean it is physically possible. If ExxonMobil's corporate life depended on inventing a faster-than-light drive, ExxonMobil would go bankrupt.

Obviously.

That's too far of a leap forward.

Buuuuuuut we aren't talking about FTL travel.

We're talking about privately owned transportation, that ain't going anywhere anytime soon. Certainly not from big cities.

 

[LittleDixie]

Well, it's not just a matter of deleting zoning codes and letting things happen. Solving these problems will require a lot of public investment in mass transit. A lot of libertarians object to that on principle (I've seen books on that), overlooking how much tax money is now spent on the automotive transportation system.

I'll bet you know what my argument is regarding taxes and pet projects.

California High Speed Rail is a good example of a whole lot of currency going into a hole and being lit on fire.

 

[pecksniff]

We're talking about privately owned transportation, that ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

It can only last so long as the oil does -- that is, the cheap oil, not the whole global supply.

 

[LittleDixie]

"What's as big as a house, burns 20 liters of fuel every hour puts out a shitload of smoke and noise and cuts an apple into three pieces?

A Soviet machine meant to cut apples into four pieces."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BUb0IB0LOE

 

[pecksniff]

Faith in techno-fix comes under the general heading of eco-modernism. It's a dead end.

 

[GothTalk]

It can only last so long as the oil does

1) that's a long fucking time.

2) nope, other energy sources are being developed and when the pressure gets turned up that development will accelerate.

-- that is, the cheap oil, not the whole global supply.

LOL....no.

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION of private transportation is not what is being discussed here. Poor people won't be able to afford it. SO WHAT? There will still be millions of cars on the roads every day.

I have a gas guzzling DAWJ!!! HEMI V8 and roast 350 dollar a piece tires off the ass of that thing just for shits n' giggles. Just because minimum wage burger flipper at McDiddlez can't do that doesn't mean I and millions of other car enthusiast don't do it all the time.

 

[Cubantripod]

Faith in techno-fix comes under the general heading of eco-modernism. It's a dead end.

Why do you always try to rationalize that capitalism can't fix problems that many times are even caused by government.

 

[pecksniff]

1) that's a long fucking time.

It's 10-15 years. Maybe less.

2) nope, other energy sources are being developed and when the pressure gets turned up that development will accelerate.

Don't put too much reliance on techno-fix. Just because there is economic incentive to do something, does not mean it is physically possible.

LOL....no.

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION of private transportation is not what is being discussed here. Poor people won't be able to afford it. SO WHAT? There will still be millions of cars on the roads every day.

I have a gas guzzling DAWJ!!! HEMI V8 and roast 350 dollar a piece tires off the ass of that thing just for shits n' giggles. Just because minimum wage burger flipper at McDiddlez can't do that doesn't mean I and millions of other car enthusiast don't do it all the time.

You don't get it. The whole industrial and financial network dependent on cheap oil is delicate, and can easily be disrupted to the point of total dysfunction and even total collapse. Even without nuclear war, a Road Warrior scenario is possible.

 

[pecksniff]

Why do you always try to rationalize that capitalism can't fix problems that many times are even caused by government.

Government didn't cause these, except by letting capitalism drag it along, and enabling whatever the market demanded.

 

[pecksniff]

In Seaside, it is safe for children to play in the streets. In the streets, not just on the sidewalks. Automobile traffic is that slow.

If you go there, you will see two things are conspicuously absent: Lawns, and visible garages.

 

[Rightguide]

Suburban living is doomed. As fuel prices inexorably rise, is the 'burbs that will become the new slums, the places where people live who can afford nothing better.

You have it backwards.

 

[WillJ8787]

Let's face it: The fact that practically everything built in America has been built around the automobile -- and around the assumption that everyone will have one -- is a problem. It is one of the biggest and least-discussed problems America has. It would be a problem even if we did not have to worry about climate change or depletion of the global petroleum supply. It's a quality-of-life thing: Living in a neighborhood where kids can't go anywhere or do anything without Mom as chauffeur, where you have to drive outside the neighborhood to get a loaf of bread, where all your neighbors are at exactly the same income level as yourself -- this does not make for good quality of life. Having a lawn is hardly an adequate tradeoff for what is lost, if you compare Levittown and its countless imitators to the prewar "streetcar suburbs" or traditional towns and cities. Strip malls are not good things and would not exist in a healthy society.

Ever see It's a Wonderful Life? George Bailey's vision of Bedford Falls transformed into Pottersville is actually unrealistically optimistic. It might be a honky-tonk town of gin mills, but it has life in the streets. In a real-life Bedford Falls, everything downtown would be boarded up and vacant by now. A situation to which George himself would have contributed, by building Bailey Acres. His own children could not have the childhood he did, as a free-range kid who could walk anywhere he wanted to go.

There is a solution -- kindasorta. The New Urbanism. A movement to build high-density, walkable-scale, mixed-used communities. Best represented at present by the Congress for the New Urbanism.

I say "kindasorta," because how can all the sprawling auto-dependent residence-only suburbs now existing possibly be retrofitted along New Urbanist lines?

Yeah, I can agree with a lot said here...anyone who has travels outside of the US can see that across much of the world, public transit via buses and trains is superb, affordable, environmentally sound.

I have been always amazed at the efficiency of getting around, in what some would consider, very undeveloped places.

On the flip side....why is it that public transportation is mostly a failure in the US(with a few noteable exceptions)? Hint: It was not always this way...the USA was a leader in public train transit in the world up to a point in history.

The development of the US interstate highway system along with a serious amount of money(lobbying) to dissuade elected officials from investing Public money(taxes) into public transit.... basically, they needed the roadways built for the products they were selling: automobiles, steel, oil.

All successful public transit systems around the world are heavily supported via govt spending (taxes).

 

[Rightguide]

Americans now, despite propaganda to the contrary, are in the process of collectively dumping the electric car. The American people are going to be driving gas-guzzling automobiles for the foreseeable future and beyond because it is the most efficient method of transport for the individual. It is the Democrat the eco-wacko, and the Joe Biden's who those "individuals" are going to add to the endangered political species list.

 

[Bud_Spencer]

Anything...ANYTHING...to keep Americans crowded into enclaves where they can be easily monitored and controlled.

Sorry, Pecky, we're not going back to your Democrat-run shithole cities.

 

[Rightguide]

Anything...ANYTHING...to keep Americans crowded into enclaves where they can be easily monitored and controlled.

Sorry, Pecky, we're not going back to your Democrat-run shithole cities.

How about we build a wall around them and make sure that nobody be allowed to leave without a Good Citizen Passport attesting the traveler as no felony criminal record, a sanity test certifying the absence of socialist tendencies, Woke idealism, Democrat Party association; or having history chronic unemployment, history of purple hair dye, facial implants, facial tattoos, face masks, man-buns, and men dressed in suits without socks.

 

[pecksniff]

Americans now, despite propaganda to the contrary, are in the process of collectively dumping the electric car. The American people are going to be driving gas-guzzling automobiles for the foreseeable future and beyond because it is the most efficient method of transport for the individual. It is the Democrat the eco-wacko, and the Joe Biden's who those "individuals" are going to add to the endangered political species list.

Efficient =/= possible. Those gas-guzzlers aren't going to have fuel much longer.

And all the fuel they burn while it lasts is going to make the climate change problem worse.

 

[pecksniff]

Anything...ANYTHING...to keep Americans crowded into enclaves where they can be easily monitored and controlled.

Sorry, Pecky, we're not going back to your Democrat-run shithole cities.

You're not going to be able to live anywhere else, unless you get a horse.

 

[Bud_Spencer]

You're not going to be able to live anywhere else, unless you get a horse.

"Experts say."

 

[WillJ8787]

Americans now, despite propaganda to the contrary, are in the process of collectively dumping the electric car. The American people are going to be driving gas-guzzling automobiles for the foreseeable future and beyond because it is the most efficient method of transport for the individual. It is the Democrat the eco-wacko, and the Joe Biden's who those "individuals" are going to add to the endangered political species list.

Your pretty much wrong on this ...it's a slow transition. I can tell you I'm in the process of converting as many gas power machines to electric rechargeable as possible. Ill be getting a Ford Maverick when I can get it ...it is so fucking popular it is sold out already.

Solar panel and solar portable storage stations are now getting so good....I'm heading in that direction. Ill be playing around with. 1000watt system to replace gas generators in the field. The has generators will be backup to solar.

But, you keep thinking what you're thinking....it's nice to have old farts who are stuck in the past around to remind us of the good old polluting days

 

[GothTalk]

It's 10-15 years. Maybe less.

Ya'll been saying that shit for over half a century, you're as full of shit now as you were in 1960.

Don't put too much reliance on techno-fix. Just because there is economic incentive to do something, does not mean it is physically possible.

We'll figure it, adapt and overcome, or we wont and we'll go extinct along with 98% of all life that has ever existed on this rock.

You don't get it. The whole industrial and financial network dependent on cheap oil is delicate, and can easily be disrupted to the point of total dysfunction and even total collapse. Even without nuclear war, a Road Warrior scenario is possible.

And as long as we keep the psychotic eco-fascist like you from pulling the rug out from under it, we'll be fine.

 

[pecksniff]

And as long as we keep the psychotic eco-fascist like you from pulling the rug out from under it, we'll be fine.

It's not a political matter. It's a physical matter. Oil remains cheap only so long as it is cheap to extract.

 

[GothTalk]

It's not a political matter.

Then no need to bring any political authority in on the matter!!! I AGREE!!

It's a physical matter. Oil remains cheap only so long as it is cheap to extract.

Right....and so long as eco-fascist like you don't attack the extraction industry like you support and promote doing all the time, we're not likely to have any drastic swings and problems.