bmike

I do not understand "I recognize that because the availability of private motor transportation has enabled many people to do more of what they prefer, they will do it."

... ? What? This isn't picking an argument with JF - but I don't see the logic here...

Is this a chicken / egg scenario? If the development and patterns developed by the auto never happened, would I somehow 'prefer' them?

How did I come to prefer long rides in the country vs. long drives? Or maybe that idyllic home in Cul-de-Sac Acres, next to 'Fawn Haven' and up the road from the elite 'The Timbers'? Or an SUV over taking the bus (assuming one exists?) How did people come to prefer strip mall shopping vs. downtown shopping? Or walking to driving? (or cycling?) Or even the first 'suburban' homes?

Putting the automobile-centric development patterns in this context somehow naturalizes this - as if it is some form of evolution that we cannot escape - and leaves out the industrial / government complex that created both the environment and the market for these things to happen - it leaves out the greed, the $$$, the disregard and the abandoning of our cities, the catering to the oil and auto lobbies, etc. etc.

Or maybe it is the innocent belief that the car enables people to 'escape', giving them personal 'freedom' (so long as payments are made, laws are followed, insurance is bought, licenses tested for, etc. etc.) to drive to the store or the woods or the trail...

Or perhaps the current environment we are living in is truely derived from innocence - there was some good in mechanized personal mobility, there were intentions to make people richer, smarter, healthier, and allow them to live wherever they chose etc. etc. and it has just gotten a bit out of control... Or perhaps our current environment is too closely linked to the 'market' - and if the car sells, we need to support it - in our planning, and paving, and products, and homes, and development patterns, and etc... and perhaps this all starts to feed on itself and grows into a cancer that cannot be cured without killing part of the patient - maybe the profit, or the homes in the country, or the private auto, or the business model that supports unlimited growth on a finite planet...




And I thoroughly disagree with the last part of the statement - call me semantic - but the automobile has not created anything. People with motives have... whether they are governments, corporations, or planners.

These motives may be innocent - bringing mobility or a 'better life' to the masses - or maybe they started innocently enough - and through all the forces acting on the systems they have turned into the world we have today - technology and ideas and planning so entrenched that it is painful to separate "what we prefer" from what we are told to prefer, and what we even know we can prefer.

I've found this Disney video a good watch... notice a problem with the future? There seems to be no congestion, no other cars fighting out for the same space... everyone zipping about blissfully in automobilic nirvanna. Innocent? Too bad it didn't depict bikes and walking and going to a lively market... no - just a sterile life moving from one conditioned space to the next - is this government inflicted on the masses? the free market? how does this get built?.

All Hail Machinekind! (as long as you are white, in this video)

The segment about our changing cities is scary - almost true in some cases. Have a car, or don't have a life - and it is amazing in this view of the future that everyone appears so fit and trim - but they never even walk around! even when mom and kids go to the mall while dad goes to work... or go on vacation in the mountains!



As to the poll - I wish we started thinking about people instead of things. And if we need 'things' due to our current situation - I'd prefer that solutions be designed to find ways to human size the 'things' we need to live, move, and communicate...

Cities and communities should put people first -
...because without people, there would be no one to drive all the cars around.