[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('the48thronin', '
')Maybe you haven't seen the hybrid trucks already being demonstrated, BUT in fact the adaptation I described above clearly said Electric traction using overhead electricity

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('the48thronin', '.')..electric traction using overhead electricity that was also the grid for distribution of wind power...

[doomlover666]

48thronin are u by chance a truck driver that lives in the south, that is a conservertive, bible thumping, nra card carrying member, by chance? Just curious?

[doomlover666]

damn I am good I just saw your info!!! LOL

[shortonoil]

emersonbiggins said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') believe they call these vehicles "trains."

[dohboi]

"only survives and prospers in countries where wealth and power is concentrated in a small elite"

That sounds pretty much like the US today, and even more tomorrow.

Having a diverse transport system is clearly an advantage. Putting all our eggs in any one basket, whether rails or trucks, is not wise. But trucks are going to have (and are already having) a harder time keeping up with rising diesel prices. Barges will likely become mor important for transport of more goods. Planes will continue to diminish in importance.

Beyond these fairly certain trends, it is indeed dfficult to guess what will evolve. It's hard for me to see how a lot of long-distance trucking can survive ever-sky-rocketing gas prices, though.

The main point is that we are going to have to increasingly localize nearly everything. Shipping everything around the world and acroos the country has alway been insane and that insanity will become more and more impossible to maintain.

As an urban dweller, it seems to me that a major part of the "appeal" of suburbs has actually been a largely irrational fear of city neighborhoods, with their scary (to many) diversity. Look at the pictures that mos (mostly tongue in cheek, I hope) posted--they actually represent many suburbanites fears about urban life--brutal, crime-ridden, hopeless.

This has become something of a self-fulfilling fantasy in many cases, of course. But Dmitri Orlov is pretty clear that it is much safer to live in dense, close-knit communities where you know all your neighbors and everyone looks out for everyone else, than to live in more isolated environments. He mentions unimaginably brutal, sadistic acts--torture that went on for years--committed on people distant from neighbors that might have noticed that something was up.

Sure you can have a close-knit suburban community, but, especially in the exurbs, the general idea there has been to put as much distance as possible between you and your neighbor.

I heard someone who works on the census on the radio say there is no over-all move away from suburbs yet, in spite certain well publicized examples of suburban exodus. (Sorry, no link.)

Who knows?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')it is much safer to live in dense, close-knit communities where you know all your neighbors and everyone looks out for everyone else

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')it is much safer to live in dense, close-knit communities where you know all your neighbors and everyone looks out for everyone else

[TreebeardsUncle]

So,

WHEN, pray tell, will there be any decline in the suburban way of life in America? Let's toss asside the idea of an end to the suburbs. The suv-driving, television-entranced, big-box-shopping, credit-enable, etc routine is still coming along strong.
g
Campus Commons area
Sacramento, California

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '.')...Apartment living sucks for families.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('the48thronin', 'M')aybe you haven't seen the hybrid trucks already being demonstrated, BUT in fact the adaptation I described above clearly said Electric traction using overhead electricity

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '[')What I am against is ---> ideas that require using my tax money to pay for something that didn't have a strong enough economic foundation to stand on its own. Unfortunately 90% of every fracking idea on this website (and politics IRL) falls into that category.
I think people need to understand that it was subsidies that got us into this mess or at least made the situation much worse then it needed to be. Cheap energy gave us single family homes out in the suburbs (30 miles)
but ultimately it was....Cheap energy + subsidies that gave us McMansions in the "exurbs" (50 miles)

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '.').. Could you tell me which subsidies you are talking about. Especially which ones subsidise the suburbs.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 't')he idea that if you have children you MUST move out to the suburbs and buy that house with a front and back yard.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 't')he idea that if you have children you MUST move out to the suburbs and buy that house with a front and back yard.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'A')mericans think of cities as either as...

[emersonbiggins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'C')ould you tell me which subsidies you are talking about. Especially which ones subsidise the suburbs.

[MarkJ]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'A')s an urban dweller, it seems to me that a major part of the "appeal" of suburbs has actually been a largely irrational fear of city neighborhoods, with their scary (to many) diversity. Look at the pictures that mos (mostly tongue in cheek, I hope) posted--they actually represent many suburbanites fears about urban life--brutal, crime-ridden, hopeless.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('emersonbiggins', 'Y')ou mean the ones besides:
a) the ruling on the constitutionality of segregated single-use (Euclidean) zoning, thus distorting the notion of property rights and the market for land use and real estate prices. -snip- Good read here: Terrain.org

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'O')K, generalizations aside, what do you think of cities in the US as they are today, not what they could be in a utopia, how they are today?