I don’t think the US is a lost cause. I think about 80-90% of the US shouldn’t be the focus of smarter urbanization efforts, but that’s because 80-90% of the US is sprawling farm land.
I’m seeing sentiment shift around cars, bikes, and public transit. I had a discussion at work the other day and three of five people said they would much prefer public transit or biking to work, it’s just not viable with today’s options. I think local effort can and will spread the message. “If Springfield can do it, Shelbyville can do it better” needs to be our aim. Things like national high speed rail networks are just too big to start until the ball is already rolling.
It’s even more than 90% of the land: 80% of people in the US live in just 3% of the land area. The only infrastructure needed in 97% of America is just train lines stringing small towns to the nearest big cities. We used to have this. The train tracks are mostly still there. We just need to make a deal with railroad companies that we’ll invest in the tracks in return for national passenger trains having total priority on them. Or just eminent domain them, that would work too.
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Well, he is spot on. Not only traffic-wise, the US is a lost case, indeed.
I don’t think the US is a lost cause. I think about 80-90% of the US shouldn’t be the focus of smarter urbanization efforts, but that’s because 80-90% of the US is sprawling farm land.
I’m seeing sentiment shift around cars, bikes, and public transit. I had a discussion at work the other day and three of five people said they would much prefer public transit or biking to work, it’s just not viable with today’s options. I think local effort can and will spread the message. “If Springfield can do it, Shelbyville can do it better” needs to be our aim. Things like national high speed rail networks are just too big to start until the ball is already rolling.
It’s even more than 90% of the land: 80% of people in the US live in just 3% of the land area. The only infrastructure needed in 97% of America is just train lines stringing small towns to the nearest big cities. We used to have this. The train tracks are mostly still there. We just need to make a deal with railroad companies that we’ll invest in the tracks in return for national passenger trains having total priority on them. Or just eminent domain them, that would work too.