[SchroedingersCat]

Hello. I live in San Francisco, CA, USA. This is supposed to be one of the more population dense, enlightened, transit and social friendly cities in all of the USA. If the neocons have a city in mind to make an example of, it is San Francisco.

Let me show you the future. Some of it is here now. We have one of the best public transit systems in the country. Buses, light rail, trolleys, cable cars, etc. I live 2.5 miles from work. I take an electric bus each day. I leave my apartment ($2200 per month for 2 bedrooms) at 8:00 am. I arrive at work between 8:40 and 8:50. In SF, if a bus driver doesn't show up for work, they are not penalized and often no one else takes their route. The average speed of public transit is 4mph. They hope to get it up to 7mph.

Driving is about as frustrating as you might imagine. Traffic is terrible, and parking is almost impossible. Last weekend I tried to make a shopping trip to buy a sewing machine. The shop was in a neighborhood that is known for bad parking. After driving around for almost 1/2 hour looking for a parking place within 8 blocks of the shop, I gave up. Parking in the downtown garages is very expensive. 2 or three hours will easily cost you $20. Meters in most parts of town cost $4 per hour.

Housing is unbelievable. Like I said, my 2 bedroom is $2200. Pretty much middle of the road. I have yet to meet someone who is living alone. Everyone is living with a family or with roommates. The median price of a house was $657,000. That includes condo's, of which SF has many.

So, basically everything here is broken. It all costs far too much, most of the time it doesn't work at all and it's getting worse by the month. Yet, it is considered by many to be the best that there is.

As we go deeper into a post-peak world, more and more cities will aspire to be what SF is. That makes me so depressed that I can barely type. This city is basically an island. The bay area has about 9 million people. SF is the end of a supply chain with 8 million consumers ahead of it.

How does your city stack up?

[roccman]

Phoenix bro is where it's at...

Really...

[cowuvula]

Here is San Fran in about 5 years.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SchroedingersCat', 'H')ow does your city stack up?

[Kylon]

Go Rural. If you want to see the future cities, look up "New Urbanism".

I can see a small New Urbanistic Community thriving. Things are relatively close together, a possible bus system(maybe one or two buses max) a lot of public space, some shops, and a possible mill, factory, power plant, or other industry available to provide export wealth.

Surrounded by large amounts of farm land to grow crops for food and export.

Take all the cities, and spread them out all over the place, with half the population density per city, then surrounded by farm land and forest, then you run into another small city.