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...The oil spill in the Gulf although heart breaking to many, still has not raised conciousness as big oil companies call all the shots. They battle to lift moratoriums on deep sea drilling before adequate safety measures can be put into place so they can access untold corporate profits while relying on the economic desperation of the working poor.
You had me right up to the naive business bashing. 60% of us have a piece of these corporations through mutual funds, IRA's, pensions, and direct stock ownership. Profits are not "untold" and in fact, in the vast majority of businesses, pale in comparison to payroll expense (wages to workers.) The adequacy of safety measures is not much in dispute: all the idled drilling rigs were immediately re-inspected and recertified. BP just flushed down the toilet one fourth to two thirds of its business value accumulated over a century--how many other companies do you think are lining up to follow them into near-suicide?
"relying on the economic desperation of the working poor?" How about the thousands put out of work by the political shutdown of the other drilling rigs? Or do you not care about working people with actual skills that have value to the rest of society?
The War on Poverty (begun in 1964) was a failure; The War on Prosperity (dating to January 20, 2008) is still in the balance. The related propaganda has already claimed you as collateral damage.
No, as long as people keep moving to the cities, urban sprawl knows no bounds, there are better ways of doing urban sprawl, but outside of prohibiting population growth, i just can't see it stopping completely
My guess is not likely since development patterns are largely rooted in American culture in terms of the concept of the frontier. I think to many restricting development is near cultural treason, and it doesn't help that this is a partisan political issue making the well poisoned.
I think slowly and surely, sprawl will slow… However, a complete death of suburbs that some say is occurring is a bit misleading. In fact, suburbs seem to be gaining density in some ways. So yes, there won't be as much sprawl in the future, but suburbs won't die either. Places like Silver Spring, Arlington, and Bethesda are becoming more dense, while some are saying that the very far out suburbs ARE dieing. So I'd say that people are moving in closer, but we won't ever completely get rid of the suburb. What we are going to have in the future are suburbs that become cities within themselves, becoming less reliant on the core-city, yet more connected with the entire metro region as a whole.
I think slowly and surely, sprawl will slow… However, a complete death of suburbs that some say is occurring is a bit misleading. In fact, suburbs seem to be gaining density in some ways. So yes, there won't be as much sprawl in the future, but suburbs won't die either. Places like Silver Spring, Arlington, and Bethesda are becoming more dense, while some are saying that the very far out suburbs ARE dieing. So I'd say that people are moving in closer, but we won't ever completely get rid of the suburb. What we are going to have in the future are suburbs that become cities within themselves, becoming less reliant on the core-city, yet more connected with the entire metro region as a whole.
That is what I am thinking and noticing is that the differences between urban and suburban are fading. My guess is that it will be less a difference in development patterns and may end up only being a density difference.
I do think that one exception to far out suburbs will be places that are a result of split-commuting in a household. Where two people commute in opposite directions requiring they live somewhere in between. Some of these outer suburbs could also survive if there are sources of blue/white collar employment there.
One of the biggest overlooked factors in ending sprawl will be the aging population. And what do many retired seniors want, according to AARP: to be the least car dependent as possible, or living without a car.
Also factor in the the increasing crackdown on the dangers of the driving skills of seniors as they age.
Also factor in the retrictive, selfish, controlling, anti-development, anti-density, historical-preservation-crazy NIMBY's in our inner cities who like things just the way they are.
To add a high density development to the inner city of San Fran-nimby or Nimby-apolis (Minneapolis) takes nothing more than an act of Congress to get it built.
One of the biggest overlooked factors in ending sprawl will be the aging population. And what do many retired seniors want, according to AARP: to be the least car dependent as possible, or living without a car.
Also factor in the the increasing crackdown on the dangers of the driving skills of seniors as they age.
Also factor in the retrictive, selfish, controlling, anti-development, anti-density, historical-preservation-crazy NIMBY's in our inner cities who like things just the way they are.
To add a high density development to the inner city of San Fran-nimby or Nimby-apolis (Minneapolis) takes nothing more than an act of Congress to get it built.
The aging population will be very important to cities in terms of how they develop.
The second factor is something that is not mentioned often but is likely true to an extent. I could see a number of places where new and denser deveopment could be hard to near impossible to do either due to a combination of red tape and cost overruns related to it. I picture it would be more prevelent in stable to strong neighborhoods where a big fear might be congestion issues if you started adding new residental towers in a place. I wonder if sometimes as well the people who own residences there do it to artifically constrain supply so their property value rises faster due to a local housing shortage. It's easier to rebuild something if it is abandoned property due to this. Although if an area is too run-down significant development can't be done since many would not want to finance a large development due to risk.
One of the biggest overlooked factors in ending sprawl will be the aging population. And what do many retired seniors want, according to AARP: to be the least car dependent as possible, or living without a car.
Also factor in the the increasing crackdown on the dangers of the driving skills of seniors as they age.
Also factor in the retrictive, selfish, controlling, anti-development, anti-density, historical-preservation-crazy NIMBY's in our inner cities who like things just the way they are.
To add a high density development to the inner city of San Fran-nimby or Nimby-apolis (Minneapolis) takes nothing more than an act of Congress to get it built.
Historical preservation is a good thing usually.
Those of us in the Bay Area (and other progressive areas of America) put restrictions up so we can keep our cities from becoming like that hellhole called Vegas
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Originally Posted by marcopolo
You had me right up to the naive business bashing. 60% of us have a piece of these corporations through mutual funds, IRA's, pensions, and direct stock ownership. Profits are not "untold" and in fact, in the vast majority of businesses, pale in comparison to payroll expense (wages to workers.) The adequacy of safety measures is not much in dispute: all the idled drilling rigs were immediately re-inspected and recertified. BP just flushed down the toilet one fourth to two thirds of its business value accumulated over a century--how many other companies do you think are lining up to follow them into near-suicide?
"relying on the economic desperation of the working poor?" How about the thousands put out of work by the political shutdown of the other drilling rigs? Or do you not care about working people with actual skills that have value to the rest of society?
The War on Poverty (begun in 1964) was a failure; The War on Prosperity (dating to January 20, 2008) is still in the balance. The related propaganda has already claimed you as collateral damage.
I will meet you halfway and agree with some of what you said, but coorporations are not entitled to live like French monarchies and evade responsibility and accountability. As far as the Wall St. is concerned, well that's always a gamble from day one, goes without saying.
"How about the thousands put out of work by the political shutdown of the other drilling rigs"
Thousands of Gulf residents and small business owners have already lost their jobs and livelihoods permanently due to BP's irresponsibility. Pick your poison. "Or do you not care about working people with actual skills that have value to the rest of society"?......Maybe you should ask yourself that questions regarding small business owners along the Gulf Shores.
I'm not comfortable with fly by night inspections with an oil spill of this magnitude and a failed MMS. They haven't even plugged the oil well yet. Perhaps logic might tell us to figure out how to plug a leaking oil well before we start extracting anymore oil from a mile beneath the surface. If we don't have awareness of these situations and not learn from them, but instead bail out the corporations that failed to begin with, then more economic and environmental catastrophes are doomed to be repeated, thus not making good on their shareholders.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 06-30-2010 at 11:35 AM..
America has an abundance of open space which has made sprawly, inefficient suburbs possible. Cheap land combined with cheap building materials and cheap gas will continue to contribute to suburban growth. Too many people are still falling over themselves trying to squeeze as much square footage out of a penny as they can. Society has to realize that bigger houses and vehicles doesn't equal better but many of us are still stuck, desperately trying to keep up with the Jones'. Only when society changes and the free market places proper value on our open space and fossil fuels will it trully stop. It's happening to an extent already but not at the rate it should.
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