In a round about way, I am making the observation that this type of planning is an anathema to our freedoms and way of life as we have known in America and would have political blow back.

I advocated for a more carrot approach of enticing people out of their cars rather than punishing them for using them. This lead to our current discussion of how we got to this place in America.

You responded by reciting the letters on your sheepskin.

Now for the second time, would you care to get back to the point?

To Europeans, walled cities were their defense against robbers in the countryside, invading armies, and overenthusiastic kings. So they still think of cities as their safety and the epitome of their civilization. Plus they like the small environmental footprint of city life.

Americans tend to view cities as places of sin, crime, dirt, oppression/bureaucracy, and lack of privacy. This is because the King sat in London, the Garden of Eden was a garden, dangerous polluting factories were in cities, and people quite liked governing themselves.

What I do have a problem with is when folks move further and further out to have their “God-given right” to a huge house and yard and such, but then expect me to help pay for more roads out to you and electric wires and sewers and the like.

You want to live 40 miles from where you work to have peace and quiet and lots of land, more power to you. But the opportunity cost of your choice is to sit in traffic and have a longer commute.

If folks want their right to sprawl, then they have to be equally willing to have tax dollars support density and transit in the cities. I guarantee you that over time more people will choose to live where it’s convenient to work and live and there’s more entertainment options.

One “talking point” that conservatives like to say is that “Keynesian economics is disproven”. But the truth is that the opposite is true. During the time that Keynesian economics was a primary policy in the United States (FDR to Kennedy), there were not major crash style recessions, the average person’s quality of life improved, and the wealth of the country increased. It was only after the advent of “deregulation” in the Nixon and Regan eras did we see the return to the boom and crash cycles in the American economy again.

@Mike Orr – I’m not disputing that the advent of human activity is the village. From the settlements at Jamestown or even in the activities of the “first Americans”, because humans are a social and collective species they banded together for survival.

But what I have observed in a study of history is that for much of the United States’ history, people would seek out the land after a suitable period of adjustment upon arriving on these shores. Until the Industrial revolution, human activity consisted mostly of farming primarily for themselves or supporting a nearby town.

Culturally, Americans differ from Europeans in their view and comfort with cities and I theorize that that stems from the agrarian beginnings of the country. Our “love affair” with the car I believe also stems from that beginning and a fair bit of Madison Avenue.

If you want to move to a system of higher density, then in my view, the challenges to be solved include changing the messages in culture so that city dwelling is perceived as desirable, practical and above all, safe. Because for too long, suburban sprawl was fueled by the deficiencies of density (crowding, noise, fear(or hatred) of people different than ourselves, crime) and the cultural impetus from the start of our country. And it is not enough to change meme’s about our culture, you actually have to create the change you want. But it can’t be by brute force of regulation (such as the Issaquah example in the PBS video) because such action has political consequences.

I believe however, that increased density will happen primarily as a result of market forces based upon “peak oil”. Such changes however will be perceived at least for a time as a devolution of living standards as people are “forced” to live closer to their work in housing that is smaller, and perhaps not as luxurious as they were used to in their urban sprawl. There is opportunity here to help serve people as this change occurs.

“The Economy of Cities” by Jane Jacobs elaborates on this. Innovations and new industries almost always begin in cities, and then the ones that require more space are transfered to the countryside. Agriculture developed in cities: there were urban farms before there were rural farms.

She says the only thing that makes a city or any region thrive is continually creating new kinds of exports, and replacing imports with locally-made goods. Seattle has been doing pretty well in this regard fortunately, with Boeing/Microsoft/Amazon/Starbucks/Costco etc all being started here. Some cities are innovative only for a decade or two and then stagnate; this is the case of many rust belt cities.

Rural areas depend on the cities they’re around. Their infrastructure was conceived and built and financed by city dwellers. Their exports go to cities, tailored to what the cities want. Innovations rarely come from rural areas, and when they do, it’s because the areas have become more city-like, particularly in telecommunications.

Europeans use as third as much energy than Americans do, and Manhattan and Toronto reach European levels, because of their density. The heat from the apartment below me warms my unit, so I rarely have to turn the heater on.

The reason city housing is unaffordable is there hasn’t been enough of it to meet the demand. Developers and zoning boards refused to believe the demand existed until recently. It will take the US some thirty years to close the gap and equalize the prices between walkable and non-walkable locations. In the meantime, more walkable housing and more transit will bring the day closer. And replacing Chinese imports, local agriculture, inner-city agriculture, and an alternative energy/efficiency industry would also improve the situation.

Too many of our current problems started off as well intended ‘fixes’ to a perceived problem. Many other’s by big business and politicians being in bed with each other.

However, the above and your post that it is answering has nothing to do with the topic at hand. You wanted examples of how dense areas subsidized sprawl, I gave them to you. Do you have anything anything to say about them?

There has never been a purely capitalist economy on the face of the earth and there has never been a purely communist one either. We have always lived in a mixed economy and your notions of subsidization and government intervention are flawed (in my view).

It is my understanding that a developer pays for the infrastructure to support the development they make so its not like your tax dollars are building the roads and sewers to Samammish plateau or North Bend. Further, if you really want to get into transactional analysis for each mode of living, nothing would make sense. If there were toll gates on each activity, you would be paying $9 a ride to get on a bus.

You can’t at once be in favor of increased density which requires regulation and land use (Government intervention) and say that Government is the problem.

I suspect if the law actually passes McGinn will likely find he has a Council majority in favor of telling the state where to go stick it.

Though I’d guess it is favorable to both the City and the State to keep the whole thing rather vague as it allows both to say “nope we won’t be eating any cost overruns”.

I think most people are comparing the seats to Metro or ST buses which generally have very comfortable seats for public transit (other than the seat pitch issue on the Bredas before they were rebuilt).

You don’t hear such horror stories about Kinkisharyo, Siemens, Bombardier, or CAF. Though LACMTA had a really bad experience with their last Siemens buy, though it is hard to tell how much of that was the vendor and how much was due to the agency since you don’t hear of many problems from Siemens other customers.

The last 50 years of devolution are not the result of the magic hand, but by the very visible hand of government interference in the economy.

1) The property owners near Issaquah that were portrayed in the video have real legitimate complaints and should be compensated in some fashion. Ron Sims I believe was being disingenuous when he suggested that those property owners hadn’t lost anything. As long as the notion of private property exists then land use becomes a process of compensation for the loss of rights to use and exploit those lands.

2) I remember a long time ago about the time of Governor Booth Gardiner there was some referendum on cleaning up Puget Sound. What ever happened with that process?

3) Also, a long time ago about the time of King County Executive John Spellman, there was an effort to buy the development rights to Kent valley farms. Yet, now 25+ years later, as the Sound Transit reference indicates this is the fastest growing portion of that region. Every time I fly into the area the Kent valley is more and more filled in. It was choice farmland close at hand to the urban area. What happened?

4) While the video touts Arlington VA as a model for development, keep in mind that the economic realities of that area are completely skewed. It is no more affordable for the average (non-professional) wage earner to live inside Arlington than inside DC. Rents and home values are astronomical. It’s the Paris effect before our eyes. Average federal wages for “professional” class (IT, Engineering, etc.) are over 6 figures.

what ever is done, you can only expect people to respond to their own personal economic situation. If they cannot afford the rents or home values in a dense environment, they will move farther out. if the public transportation system doesn’t provide solutions, they will use cars.

Unfortunately, this is where the defects in the free market system work against the societal goals of clean air and water and sustainable eco systems.