Originally Posted by
Roody
you keep saying that no "carfree" housing development could ever be commercially viable in America. But it looks to me like millions of people already live in carfree housing, and pay some of the highest rents in the country for that carfree privilege.
The shift from car-ubiquity to car-free as a universally accessible choice is seeming more and more like a development akin to the shift from slavery to slave-freedom. The ante-bellum history tells a similar story globally and in US states and territories where slave labor was gradually being reduced and replaced while those who favored slavery were relocating to areas where slavery was popular and therefore facilitated by law.
What I find ironic is that although warmer climates are more conducive to year-round cycling than colder ones, it would not surprise me if a similar level of polarization would occur between north and south eventually as occurred during the time of Lincoln's election and the onset of civil war. I expect this because moneyed northerners tend to migrate to southern cities where they can drive in air-conditioned vehicles between air-conditioned indoor destinations and limit their exposure to outdoor climate.
As such, I can imagine that eventually the Federal government will pursue legislation to mandate the ability for people to freely travel and migrate without the necessity of owning and driving cars, since most cities will simply no longer be able to accommodate everyone driving. At that point, southern states might attempt succession again and create a constitution that specifically protects the right to drive a personal automobile.
I know this scenario sounds overly dramatic but it really isn't unthinkable given the fact that we are already in a global state of rising consciousness regarding the unsustainability of continuing automobile-growth as well as a global economic crisis having to do with the fact that so many economies depend on revenues from automobile and fuel sales, particularly to US markets but also elsewhere. It is little different from the situation of the 19th century where the global economy had become so dependent on slavery and slave trading while at the same time becoming conscious of the unsustainability of the slave economy from a political-economic development standpoint.