Suburban sprawl (with additions from the Maglev thread)

[Darth_Yuthura]

Mod edits were removed. Off-topic content was added. Off-topic has been removed again and mod edits restored in this post. Posts related to Suburban sprawl were moved from the Maglev thread where they were off topic to this thread where they were on topic. --Jae

[Drunkside]

Well spoken DY.

[Jae Onasi]

If you were to look at the urban footprint of Chicago in 1944, the population of about 6 million sat crammed into an area that is roughly one sixth the area it is today. Today's massive Chicago footprint has grown six times its size since then and the population has only increased by 3 million. That is suburban sprawl written large.

Well, with one of the worst school systems in the country, gang violence, and general 'hate to feel crammed in on top of 6 million of my closest friends' sentiment, I can't imagine why people would want to get out.

 

The issue is not really that you (referring to anyone with the same mindset) want to go a few miles out of the city. It's that millions of others want to do the same thing and look at what came from that: to get out of the city, you'd more likely have to go more like 30 miles away to get into an undeveloped area. When everyone does that, a city becomes more inefficient and more difficult to maintain. It is not the issue of whether ONE, but everyone wanting their own home, car, and privacy.

I see nothing wrong with that. It's called the American dream.

 

Say I have a job in Chicago and want to live a few miles away... someone's already living there. So I go about a mile down the freeway... another person is already living there... another 30 miles away and there is finally somewhere to build my new home complete with yard and open space with no one else around... at least until the next person buys the next lot down.

I know that.

The economy is suffering significantly because American cities are becoming difficult to maintain their infrastructure.

This is an incorrect assumption. The economy is suffering because people overused credit and bought more house and more stuff than they could afford, on top of fraud in the government and banking sectors and changes in regulations that allowed people access to far more credit by predatory lenders than they should have had. It's not the infrastructure that's causing the economy to suffer--that's dependent on our taxes. The infrastructure, being dependent on our taxes, is in trouble because the economy is in trouble, thus lowering the amount of taxes going into the system, not the other way around.

Mass transit is a necessity for a city to function properly.

LA does fine with a completely crappy mass transit system.

 

Population density is critical for mass transit to work.

That is an incorrect assumption that makes this theory fall apart. Mass transit has to be accessible and affordable to the target audience to get them to use it. Population density has nothing to do with that. Washington DC's population density is much lower than LA's, but their mass transit system works a lot better.

 

When you have suburban sprawl in most US cities, mass transit is no longer viable because there aren't enough riders for it to break even.

I disagree. There are Metra trains (mass transit) going out to the suburbs at all hours of the day in the Chicago region, and they do break even unless the cost of fuel skyrockets like it did last summer. Metra works great and is a wonderfully viable option--I've ridden the trains any number of times. Your theory is based on yet another incorrect assumption.

 

Compare any US city (except NY) to any other around the world and you realize that we need to follow their urban models if we hope to compete as a global power.

I don't like 'the urban model', I don't agree with 'the urban model' which is based on a number of false assumptions in your theory that I delineated above, and I don't want to participate in 'the urban model'. There are millions of my cohorts who agree with me, because they're getting the heck out of cities on a regular basis. Thank God I don't have the government dictating to me that I must live in a big city.

 

Americans get their goods from distant locations... that is our way of life. We either need to start providing our goods locally

Where are you planning to put the millions of acres of required farmland to feed all the people in the big cities? And please don't tell me you're going to put it on top of rooftops.

 

which is highly unlikely to happen, or we need to have an effective and efficient transportation system to make it viable to transport goods and people from distant places. The US transportation infrastructure is simply outdated, has been neglected, and was overtaken by our dependence on the automobile.

Mass transit has been neglected, I agree. If the bus and train schedules were more convenient, I would likely use them more often. Unfortunately, they're not convenient with my busy schedule, so we use a car instead. My husband does use the train now and then to get to his Army unit, since the train stops at the reserve center he works at. However, it requires some planning on our parts to make sure we can arrange our schedule and the babysitter's schedule to account for the extra time it takes. If one of my kids gets sick at school or has some kind of emergency, having a car means I can get to them right away. I can't do that with a bus.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Deleted.

[Darth_Yuthura]

Deleted

[Jae Onasi]

You can't just contradict someone and say you proved something.

I certainly can contradict you on your points, especially when you're passing off wrong information as fact, when I know the opposite is true based on my years living in Chicago.

 

I'm not the one trying to prove that we should all give up our choices on where we should live based on false information and inaccurate premises. My goal was to disprove the false premises supporting a shaky theory. If you would like to provide new information here besides the title of a book, I'll be happy to read it. If what's in the book is what you've already presented here, I don't have to waste my time reading it since I've disproven a number of its points already.

 

Everything I have stated is backed by this. It was used in my class for urban land-use planning... so it must be reliable if a university would have it.

That proves that one professor thinks this crazy idea of forcing people to live like sardines packed into little tiny spaces is a great idea, and that you've absorbed it completely without thinking fully about it. If your book is saying all this bizarre and incorrect information about Chicago, I would question the veracity of this textbook.

 

Even as early as 1990, sprawl had already manifested itself greatly.

Try a good 40 years earlier than that.

 

That's gone too far! I HAVE been to these cities and I am earning a degree in Urban geography, so don't proclaim such crap!

Don't proclaim crap that's patently false--you're trying to say things about Chicago that I know are frankly wrong because I've lived there, both city and suburbs. Your study of urban geography is pure theory, not based on real life experience. What you're learning in books isn't holding up to the Real World. How long did you actually spend in Chicago? I would think that it was unlikely you were there to look at parking lots.

Alright, maybe I was a bit over the top saying NO parking lots.

Uninformed.

I meant no parking lots large enough to support the vast majority of commuters that decide to use cars instead of public transportation.

There are dozens upon dozens of very large parking lots and parking garages in the Chicago Loop. Where do you think people go shopping for groceries? At grocery stores with, guess what, large parking lots. I've actually parked in them. Again, you can see them on Google maps for yourself if you want. I never had a problem finding spots in the variety of different parking garages and lots that I used, though it was somewhat of a challenge on very busy days like when there were Cubs, Bears, and Sox games on the same day. Again, you are trying to make a claim about parking in Chicago that is clearly not true. I've experienced parking in Chicago, I suspect that neither you nor the authors of your textbooks have in any significant degree.

 

Suburbia is mostly dominated by parking lots where NY and downtown Chicago have very little land dedicated to parked vehicles. Obviously there would have to be loading docks, and such; but not in order to support more than... 10% of the commuters or such. In suburbia, you must have about... 90-100% dedicated to car commuters.

Again, you're passing off misinformation as fact. I can tell you, having driven on the Eisenhower and Kennedy with a few hundred thousand of my closest commuter friends, that there is far more than 10% of the city's population driving around Chicago on any given day. You can look at I-pass usage statistics and IDOT information to show you true numbers rather than making pure guesses.

Are you guessing on the suburban car commuters? It looks to me like you are. Also, you're assuming that all suburban commuters are working in the city, when in fact they may be working in the same suburb they live in, or a neighboring suburb. It's far more complex than you're portraying here.

 

That's because all these suburbs have already been built! Many sat upon perfectly good farmland that is now gone.

Yes, Chicago and NYC used to be perfectly good farmland for the Native Americans, too. What's the point, other than 'land use changes'?

 

They were a mistake from the start to have all these single family detached homes(SFDH) in the first place. People like you are the reason why so much farmland has been lost.

There's so much farmland left untilled it's not funny, so I'm not worried. Besides, I grow a garden in my yard (something I wasn't able to do in Chicago), so I'm contributing my little part to green space.

 

So are you saying it's a mistake for people to have a choice in the type of housing they'd like to have? It's a mistake that the government didn't interfere in our lives to force us into a mode of life we hate? We should just turn into a dictatorship and force people to live in shoeboxes next to trains? You still haven't answered any of my questions or points on reasons why people choose to leave the city in the first place.

This is not only a realistic, but a factual answer I gave. If you took the residents of downtown Chicago and Milwaukee put them in SFDH, the urban footprint would spread to Madison and Rockford. None of the land between those cities could be used for agriculture.

Some people are happy to live in an urban environment in condos and apartments, and want short commutes to their jobs in the city because they don't want to spend hours on a train or a lot of money on gas or mass transit costs. Hence why we don't have that situation. However, if you build a bunch of maglev trains for people to commute on, it might alleviate some of the negative social issues like horrid schools and gang violence resulting from urban over-crowding in Chicago, because people would be able to travel faster to greater distances to get to their homes in safe neighborhoods.

 

That is NOT proof in itself. You have a very narrow view of a much larger issue, but you do have some first-hand experience. Now how about some evidence presented by someone who specializes in urban geography?

First-hand observations aren't proof? Since when? Since you don't like having your points blown apart by someone whose experience doesn't match the apparent misinformation presented to you in a textbook? I've walked and driven and ridden on mass transit all over downtown Chicago, you have not. How about you present some evidence by someone who's actually experienced urban life and doesn't have an agenda about how people should live in Fantasyland?

 

Your theory is saying we MUST move into big cities to support trains and other mass transit. This is America, we're free people. We don't HAVE to do things if it's incompatible with the way we want to live--in my case in a safe neighborhood free of gang warfare and in a city with an excellent school system, where I don't have to deal with rude neighbors the next wall over playing rap so loud at 2am that the entire apartment building vibrates. If you like the urban lifestyle, good for you. You have lots of choices in that case. You don't like the way I live, but I'm not here to make you happy by buying into a theory full of holes along with you. I'm not in the least worried about not living the idealistic way you think everyone should conform to. If you want people to live in cities, you're going to need a heck of a lot better reason than "you should because it allows us greater population density for better mass transit". I should live in a large city with crap schools and higher crime for an _ideal_ made up by some prof living in an ivory tower? This is reality, not a textbook theory.

[Tommycat]

I find it funny that most of the authors mentioned seem to have houses of their own with large yards.... Shouldn't they all be living in large towering apartment complexes?

[Darth_Yuthura]

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[Tommycat]

pfff. I'd rather live in an area that has a lower violent crime per capita than an area that has better transportation. Phoenix for instance has a higher per capita crime rate than Glendale, Chandler and Mesa(three suburbs of Phoenix). You put too many people closer together, they tend to start fighting eachother.

[Q]

@D_Y:

 

The problem with your argument and its sources is that they utterly fail to take reality into account. Most people won't want to live in your Caves of Steel, and trying to force them to do so would be nothing short of tyrannical. Are you and your sources so detached from reality that you can't see this? I'd really hate to see how you relate to people IRL.

[mimartin]

I’m sorry Darth_Yuthura, but all reported posts are handled privately. However, the person that reported the post can see what action, if any, was taken. All reported posts are handled as quickly as possible and I have not ignored any reported post. I’ve been looking and reading the current reported posts all morning, but I am also working and the paying gig takes precedence over this.

 

Since you are the original poster I will lock the thread if you request, but I will not restrict who can and cannot post in any thread open in Kavar. Everyone including moderators are entitled to their opinion (right or wrong) and it does not have to conform to yours even when you believe you have presented a valid argument.

[Jae Onasi]

I am making this post simply because the issue had been drawn out after I already filed a violation and had it ignored.

You're free to file report. The staff here are all volunteers and are not always available to jump when you say jump.

[i'm afraid that Jae Onasi is only one person and hardly qualified to make such accusations.

Which is why I included Google maps (so that you can see each and every parking lot for yourself, and how the land is utilized), along with IDOT and I-Pass for traffic information. Additional sources would include the City of Chicago transportation office and Metra Rail, so that you can get the raw data and evaluate it for yourself, rather than through the filter of one book or one professor. Go look at the primary sources, Darth_Yuthura, not the secondary or even tertiary ones.

 

Zyberk is/was the dean of architecture at the university of Miami.

Of course, someone in architecture working in a Miami suburb with degrees from Princeton and Yale and no history of living in either New York, Chicago, or LA at any point, whose company's claim to fame is having a pretty building featured in the opening credits of the TV show Miami Vice. Of course that makes her an expert on Chicago. I'd be very surprised if she actually lived in something smaller than 2000 sq. feet herself, considering she and her husband have designed an entire resort. I wonder how much mass transit she's put into that.

 

Jeff Speck was a professional land-use planner in Germany.

Germany and the US have vastly different geography and needs. Of course the land-use in Germany is going to be entirely different. That does not make him an expert on American cities anymore than being a cardiologist makes one an expert in neurosurgery.

 

I would trust these people much more than any one person I don't even know. People who argue here should either challenge these people, OR challenge that what I posted is not verified by them, OR present some sources of their own. Jae may be qualified as a reference, but still is only one person.

It is YOUR job to present the facts for your argument. I have found flaws in your facts that render your argument invalid. It has nothing to do with you as a person. You need to find better information, and if these people are giving you this bad information, then you need to review whether these are even good sources or not. The only way you can do that is if you go to the primary sources that they've used and decide whether or not they've made accurate or inaccurate conclusions.

 

It's obvious that some people won't be persuaded on this matter. I would rather trust Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck on the matter.

Yes, the same three who work for the same Miami company that designed the lovely building in the opening theme for Miami Vice. I'm sure they've made a lot of money off their book, which undoubtedly assisted as a marketing tool for getting their name out to hundreds of architecture students. I'm sure none of them have dealt with the realities of urban living. I'm sure none of them live in small condos in areas of town where you'd hear guns go off any time of day or night, and I'd be very surprised if they didn't live in single-family detached homes. Speck works for the National Endowment for the arts, his degree is in art history from the ivy league Harvard.

 

Jeffery Zimmerman, an instructor of mine, also lived in Chicago and Milwaukee. He had disagreed on many of the issues Jae presented as fact. (Yes, I actually bothered to include him on this) And I certainly wouldn't expect people to believe me, which is why I included REFERENCES in my argument.

He is more than welcome to present his findings on Chicago and Milwaukee. I'd be interested in knowing what he finds wrong with my observations about parking lots and garages in downtown Chicago when the evidence is available on any map for anyone to see. I'm sure we'd have a delightful time talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly about both cities, since I've also lived and worked in both. He's welcome to post on his theories here, and why people should be REQUIRED to buy into New Urbanism. So far, this looks like a 'Do as I say, not as I do' kind of proposition by the leaders in question.

 

Suburban sprawl started after WWII and it was because of that which sprawl truly began. It was actually more like 59 years ago that it started, not 40. It became more and more of an issue the closer it got to present day.

You said in a previous post that suburban sprawl started in the 1990's. Which is correct?

 

Those who have a garden and grow their own vegetables I assume don't come close to providing enough for themselves... considering that people don't normally grow food on the land their lawn and house occupies.

You've never been to Amish country or local farms, either, I see.

 

Zimmerman called this 'false greene theory,' where people presume they make an impact when they actually are just trying to justify what they do and feel better about themselves.

I feel fine about my suburban life anyway, and I'm happily out of the dirty, crime-ridden, pothole-filled, crap-school city. I just happen to also grow vegetables because there's nothing like vine-ripened cherry tomatoes that you've picked minutes before putting the into the salad made from home-grown lettuce. I grow my own herbs too.

 

The suburb location of Prairie Crossing proclaim to be greene, but it was FAR from this because it only has about 1,400 people and it is the juncture point where two major commuter lines between Chicago and Milwaukee

Unless you count Amtrak, which is not really light rail/commuter rail, there is no commuter train line that goes from Chicago all the way to Milwaukee. The farthest north that Metra rail (the commuter rail system for the Chicago region) stops is Kenosha, WI. Please refer to the Metra Rail site for more information on stops. There is a lot of talk about extending Metra all the way to Milwaukee, and I hope it happens. I think it would do a lot to reduce traffic congestion on I-94.

 

These few people force another stop to be made and add another 5 minutes for everyone on the commuter lines. That's not much, but the additional time for tens of thousands is enormous. The greater the distance and the more frequent the stops a public transportation system must make, the less effective it will be. The fewer who ride, the more it will also cost taxpayers.

This entire statement makes no sense. First you complain that not enough people use commuter/mass transit, then you complain about extra stops when people do use mass transit. What do you want? If you don't make frequent stops, you're not going to have nearly as many riders.

The twin cities have a public transit system that is barely used and costs taxpayers much because they get so little revenue from riders. There are so few near the stops that most would rather drive.

Have you ever waited outside in -50 windchills for the bus to come? It's winter all year long in the Twin Cities, except maybe July 15th. The answer to that is to put the mass transit stops near the people who are going to utilize the system and make it more convenient and cost effective for them to use it.

Dallas has a transit system that is meant to start transportation oriented development (TOD)gentrification. This is where people want to develop near train stations and will construct large multi-floor structures so more people can use public transportation instead of their cars. Portland is a prime example of where an auto-dependent city could transition to using public transportation and succeed. The city improved because of the light rail system; Dallas, Vegas, and Phoenix are all establishing TOD, but are projected to function AFTER the current depression has passed.

Great, build a train station, but build gawdawfully expensive housing within walking distance of the station. That's brilliant land use there for the people who most need mass transit.

I compared some numbers in regards to parking in central Chicago and did severely underestimate the land areas devoted to parking, but still got roughly .28 parking spaces for every worker both for ramps and underground facilities. If you were to compare the LAND area alone, that might compare to a suburb.

Now you see what I was trying to get at. You found the data and came to your own conclusions.

 

Compared to the sheer number of jobs, the amount of space designated to parking is TINY.

That would depend on a number of factors, including the number of people who live downtown within walking distance of their jobs and such, along with actual job numbers.

 

For the sake of not escalating this matter further, I respectfully ask that the public transportation argument end here. I AM NOT just giving up because 'someone has proven all my arguments to be false.' Some of my arguments may be lacking, yes; but so are counter arguments that are not backed by anything beyond one person's experiences in a major city.

 

I won't carry this on and would respectfully ask that Jae not respond to this again. I don't want this escalate this issue because she has the power to throw me off this forum. I am NOT backed in a corner and could continue this, but don't want to.

Sorry, I didn't see this part before replying. You also threw down the gauntlet. I provided you with sources that included not only my personal experience, but also hard data--Google maps where you could see the sites for yourself, IDOT, and I-Pass, as you can see in the previous posts. You could have looked at any of those sites to see where my experiences match up with the data. You can ask for me to not respond, but I felt I had to clarify some issues and decided to post what I'd already written here anyway. If you prefer to be done with this topic at this point, that's fine.

 

I don't ever throw someone off the forum with whom I've had a discussion with in Kavar's without consulting the rest of the staff. In fact, no one permanently banned from this forum who's had discussions with me has ever been permabanned by me, and all of us who are staff and participate here will continue the practice of discussing that level of sanction with each other before anyone would be banned. All the troublemakers in this forum were banned by admins after long discussions on what to do with them by the staff as a group. The only accounts that get unilaterally permabanned are adbots and pornbots, and even those are reported in the moderator section so that we all know why action was taken on an account.

[Darth_Yuthura]

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[Tommycat]

Here are a lot of internet sources to augment what I've presented. These are not primary sources, but they all explain more of the factors that influence the environmental, political, and psychological factors in the US.

 

 

You can't find a good place to build a new house that's within 30 minutes of any major US city.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1119-13.htm

You saying the capital city of Arizona isn't a major city?

 

Environmental issues and the excessive sum of fuel in vehicles make suburbs like poison to the American landscape. Few natural spaces and loss of community are all very real.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section007group5/home

 

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/auxiliary/BC/PAGESL1/2003Conference/2003ConfPagesL2/2003FinalReport/2003FinalReportEachPerson/Rogers/ABRogers.doc

Exactly why we need to spend money on fuel efficient/fuel free vehicles. Not some near useless maglev

 

 

Health issues in regards to suburbs:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39554/story.htm

overcrowding of hospitals, high exposure to larger numbers of people... ignored? but "Oh noes teh obesitee"

 

A sad attempt to scare people into taking action. Maybe Americans are just too selfish to put the good of the state before themselves.

http://www.acton.org/publications/randl/rl_article_303.php

Yer darn tootin I'm selfish. The government isn't buying my place to live. When I was in the service, Sure I'd live in barracks. Government was paying for me to live there. Now that they aren't, I will decide where I live. The view is nicer farther out. Air is cleaner. and there isn't a family of elephants living above me.

 

Overall, this argument is simply to state what could POTENTIALLY be done in the US to improve the transportation infrastructure, but there are so many limiting factors that could be overcome if certain people wouldn't be so selfish and put the good of the state in front of their own luxuries. Regional/local planners don't cooperate well and won't ever for such a massive project like this to ever take off the ground.

Excuse me for wanting a better life for my children. Excuse me for actually wanting to live AWAY from the higher crime areas.

 

With $10 trillion in debt and America's infrastructure costing more than it can produce and export... the state will ultimately break down before any of this will ever happen. There is very little point in deciding whether to choose option A or option B, knowing neither can come about.

Might want to see how much food we actually produce in the US. Enough to feed the world in fact. At a bare minimum, enough to feed ourselves.

 

I'm not going to post on this thread again, but won't demand it be closed. Someone has to be mature about this and quite frankly, I'm past caring.

 

Yes, very mature...

 

something I thought was funny

Staley lives in a genuine suburb, Bellbrook, Ohio, near Dayton, with his wife and two children. He also serves on the Bellbrook Planning Commission.

Your source that "hates sprawl" apparently lives in a suburb...

[Q]

Maybe Americans are just too selfish to put the good of the state before themselves.

Overall, this argument is simply to state what could POTENTIALLY be done in the US to improve the transportation infrastructure, but there are so many limiting factors that could be overcome if certain people wouldn't be so selfish and put the good of the state in front of their own luxuries.

 

I assume that by "certain people" you mean those who possess a unique personality, and by "selfish" you mean unwilling to be sheep and surrender those paltry rights such as privacy, personal safety and, that bane of the socialist ideal -private ownership , for the good of the state when the state is not looking out for their best interests, as it has demonstrated dozens of times in my lifetime. I'm sorry, but what country do you live in, again?

 

Color me unimpressed with your self-righteous, guilt-tripping BS.

Regional/local planners don't cooperate well and won't ever for such a massive project like this to ever take off the ground.

Could it be because they think it's a bad idea?

With $10 trillion in debt and America's infrastructure costing more than it can produce and export... the state will ultimately break down before any of this will ever happen. There is very little point in deciding whether to choose option A or option B, knowing neither can come about..

How about option C: make outsourcing illegal? That would solve a hell of a lot of problems like the trade deficit.

I'm not going to post on this thread again, but won't demand it be closed. Someone has to be mature about this and quite frankly, I'm past caring.

Tired of seeing your ridiculously unrealistic arguments being torn apart by common sense?

[Darth_Yuthura]

Deleted

[Q]

As well as just providing yet more proof (as if we needed any) that our illustrious higher education system is using it's esteemed position to push a political agenda.

[Web Rider]

You know what, I'm glad none of you believe me. It would just mean that I could walk a little higher knowing how little Americans care about their future.

Correction: how little we care about what self-righteous foreigners think of our future.

 

Just letting people know that all empires have short life spans. And the US is such an empire.

Translation: "I have been clearly bested but refuse to surrender!" or, in the layman: "Bawwww!!"

[Darth_Yuthura]

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[Tommycat]

Just letting people know that all empires have short life spans. And the US is such an empire.

for one we aren't an empire.

for another

Ottoman Empire 1299 – 1923 or around 600 years (ok, 624)

Roman Empire 27 BC – AD 1473 or around well... 1500 years (1500 even...)

Holy Roman Empire til 1806

And Russia was an empire from 1547 until 1917

 

To me that seems to indicate that not only do you not know about our cities, but you aren't familiar with empires either Maybe you should get a refund haha.

 

The US was established as a democratic republic in 1776. so... we're still pretty shy of even the 300 mark.

[Web Rider]

for one we aren't an empire.

for another

Ottoman Empire 1299 – 1923 or around 600 years

Roman Empire 27 BC – AD 1473 or around well... 1400 years

Holy Roman Empire til 1806

 

To me that seems to indicate that not only do you not know about our cities, but you aren't familiar with empires either

 

If you define Empires by consistent borders, China, Japan, and Russia are still going fairly strong.

[Tommycat]

If you define Empires by consistent borders, China, Japan, and Russia are still going fairly strong.

Sadly empires kinda require an emperor... but... I guess if the US counts as an empire, then sure why not?

 

Instead of arrogantly pretending that everything is alright, maybe you could come up with some potential solutions that are 'more realistic' than this one.

 

And no, none of the solutions involving hydrogen fuel cell, ethanol, electric hybrid, renewable energy, or 'everything is fine' are realistic either, so don't bother with those.

Um... electric vehicles. GM has the Volt. anticipated to come out soon™. Fuel costs are always a factor. I'm not too worried about power plants. we have Nuclear Solar and Hydroelectric here in AZ(as well as coal).

[Jae Onasi]

Does ANYONE remember when fuel prices spiked only a year ago?

I buy gas on the 30th of April because God knows when May rolls around it spikes. It spikes every summer for a number of reason--summer boutique blends go into effect to reduce ozone emissions, OPEC and oil company greed, and increased usage. I remember when gas was a quarter a gallon before the 70's oil crisis. I would argue that the outrageous speculation and market manipulation by the oil oligarchy is what fueled this severe recession/mild depression in large part. But that's a different topic.

 

The state was in crisis because they all depended on the automobile and nothing else was there to substitute for it.

And guess what? People stopped driving and used more public transportation. Metra and L-train ridership was up last summer, iirc.

 

Anyone who thinks everything is alright now and will stay alright is very narrow-minded.

I don't believe anyone has argued that things are 'alright' at this time. The baiting comment is unnecessary.

 

What will happen when oil supplies are in short supply again?

The price will go up again until people stop buying, the supply will increase and prices will come down, barring artificial manipulation by OPEC, the oil companies, and speculators.

 

This is a warning about a potential disaster looming on the horizon.

Yes, I've heard about many looming disasters over the course of my lifetime, and we've managed to weather them all. Vietnam war, stagflation, oil crisis, Cold War, Global Warming, terrorists, racial issues, class issues, Iraqi wars 1 and 2, and so on.

 

If Americans are too stupid to help themselves, then by all means...

Of course we'll help ourselves and those around us--we're Americans, when we have a problem, we get a solution. Sacrificing for the state isn't part of our culture, and is the polar opposite of American rugged indivdualism. So we'll find other ways to deal with the oil crisis besides living in gerbil cages by the train stations. We've adapted before, we will again.

 

they will deserve whatever they get. If you're still around and happy 30 years from now, then you can gloat; but that's not going to happen.

This is such a sour grapes comment. I understand your frustration at people not agreeing with your POV. However, you're asking people to do things they don't want to do. It's a pretty idea on paper that will never survive the American mindset and business climate. Now, give businesses incentives to come up with novel and economical alternatives to oil as an energy source, and you'll have a lot of solutions.

 

If I'm still around and happy in 30 years, I'll gloat about having made it to that ripe age of 4 decades of anniversaries of my 29th birthday. I'll be too busy enjoying life to worry about something said in a thread 30 years back.

 

Without gasoline, the US would almost completely collapse...

Horse hockey. The US survived just fine without gas in the 1800's. We'd get by again on alternatives if we had to--natural gas, electricity fueled by coal, nuclear, wind, and hydroelectric plants, not to mention our own oil shale and oil reserves. We have an extraordinary amount of natural resources at hand, and we'd quickly find cost-efficient ways to use them. Already we have natural gas and electric vehicles, the price of extracting oil from shale is coming down, and we're exploring different kinds of wind, solar, and hydroelectric solutions.

 

Europe also depends on gasoline, but can get by much better than the US and therefore more resilient.

If they're resilient as well, more power to them. I'd like to see every country stop being held hostage by OPEC and dictator oil states like Iran and Venezuela.

 

This isn't some stupid American pride... it's willful ignorance.

This is pushing the envelope on flamebaiting--I would recommend toning it down.

 

Do you know who would be the more resilient if we lost all access to oil suddenly? People who live in rural areas who already know how to be self-sufficient. Guess what group of people in general have no idea how to be self-sufficient? Urban dwellers.

 

The current credit crisis actually was anticipated and could have been avoided had the markets not been over-inflated with profit on account based on investments that no longer are worth their original value... instead of taking precautions, we're now stuck in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. When the next major economic crisis hits, it will be in regards to energy.

The energy crisis is already here.

 

Instead of arrogantly pretending that everything is alright, maybe you could come up with some potential solutions that are 'more realistic' than this one.

Again, this is far more flame-baity than it needs to be. Since you're the one presenting the argument, it's up to you to defend it. Others are not required to come up with alternatives, though for the purposes of discussion it's not a bad idea. Again, no one has said one thing about this situation being 'alright'. Saying that anyone here said that is a misrepresentation of their comments.

 

And no, none of the solutions involving hydrogen fuel cell, ethanol, electric hybrid, renewable energy, or 'everything is fine' are realistic either, so don't bother with those.

Why aren't those realistic? They're fair game for discussion, though probably for another thread.

 

How much benefit will maglev or high speed rail provide, compared to existing freight trains (which do carry semi-truck cargo, at least in my part of the country)? Will the benefits outweigh the costs in the long term?

[Astor]

Horse hockey. The US survived just fine without gas in the 1800's. We'd get by again on alternatives if we had to--natural gas, electricity fueled by coal, nuclear, wind, and hydroelectric plants, not to mention our own oil shale and oil reserves. We have an extraordinary amount of natural resources at hand, and we'd quickly find cost-efficient ways to use them. Already we have natural gas and electric vehicles, the price of extracting oil from shale is coming down, and we're exploring different kinds of wind, solar, and hydroelectric solutions.

 

While I agree that the US (and not forgetting the Western World) would go on quite well without gasoline, the US survived without gas in the 1800s because it wasn't needed in every day life. Very little in the 1800s required gas or oil, as much machinery ran on Steam, until the advent of the internal combustion engine.

[Darth_Yuthura]

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