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Only if subsidized roads still existed. Mass transit used to charge enough to cover both capital and operational costs, until roads cut too deeply into their business.
Yes, because no mass transit uses or ever used roads.
Until the large number of poor and non-English-speaking kids start bringing down test averages in those wonderful suburban schools, and then turn into teenagers who wander around the neighborhood in baggy T-shirts scaring the gentry, in which case it's off to the next wave of exurbs!
Actually, Adams County, Colorado has a higher percentage of hispanics than Denver; Arapahoe County has a higher percentage of blacks than Denver. This is not to say that all hispanics and/or blacks are poor, or that all hispanic kids are non-English speaking. However, it does say that our suburbs are diverse and the "gentry" have not been scared off nor have school scores declined. As the city gentrifies with white hipsters, people of color and of less economic means move to the suburbs.
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Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist
I think you're looking too hard to find reason to take offense. That's not a jab at suburbanites (go to plenty of city meetings and listen to controversies over whether or not people want, say, chickens to be legal in backyards); it's the classic conflict that comes into play when you have two different types of potentially conflicting uses in one area. Perhaps you feel differently, but I think that MOST people probably do not want to live adjacent to a working farm. They worry about smells and heavy machinery and property values, and potentially things like pesticides, etc. There's plenty of evidence of this at work, and since exurbs are where farm use and more purely residential use most often butt heads, that's where the topic of land use tends to get most heated. I don't consider that to be an offensive statement, but rather a statement of fact. Land use decisions can get VERY controversial at any time, but all the more so during times when there's rapid change, like from the transition from agricultural to suburban. (although again, as so-called "urban agriculture" gains momentum, you're finding those kind of conversations in neighborhoods that haven't seen cows for 100 years, but that's a different thread.)
For as much as you read in some urbanist publications that people move to the suburbs and then complain about the odor from farms, etc, I have never really read an account of this actually happening. I've been to a lot of council meetings. I believe you can raise chickens in Denver if you want, also Lafayette, CO.
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Originally Posted by wburg
Having driven by large cattle ranches, it's definitely not something I'd want in my neighborhood--at least not upwind. And having grown up in several different suburbs, none of them had cows, so I'm not sure cows should be counted as some sort of standard of suburban life.
Well, maybe I didn't make myself clear. There are no cows in my suburb either, but there are close by in the rural areas. That is the nice thing about living on the edge of the metro area.
I'm not buying this monopoly thing...where I live, there were three different streetcar companies, each separately owned. Doesn't that break the model that assumes streetcars have to have an exclusive monopoly? And aren't roads for automobiles just a different type of monopoly, a government-owned one?
Well, maybe I didn't make myself clear. There are no cows in my suburb either, but there are close by in the rural areas. That is the nice thing about living on the edge of the metro area.
There are no cows to see in the suburb I grew up. A few very small farms that survived as cutsey farmstands (or did; most are gone) but they'd be easy to miss.One would have to go 30 miles or so to get to a rural area.
Though, it'd still hard to see cows. Cornfields, potato fields or vineyards are more likely in Long Island.
I'm not buying this monopoly thing...where I live, there were three different streetcar companies, each separately owned. Doesn't that break the model that assumes streetcars have to have an exclusive monopoly? And aren't roads for automobiles just a different type of monopoly, a government-owned one?
And I'm sure these lines ran on separate monopoly rights. Consider the Spanish Empire. There were dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds, of state granted monopolies. One monopoly might have rights to tea, another for silk, others had grants to specific areas and everything that occurred in them. Back to streetcars, do you think a streetcar line that ran from the Capitol to East Sacramento really competed with a streetcar line that ran from the Capitol to Land Park? Those may have been owned by the same company, but hypothetically assume they were not. Each monopoly was separately owned and had separate monopoly rights to the areas they ran in.
Consider that when San Francisco couldn't get a privately-owned monopolist to build the Geary Line they just went ahead and made their owned government-owned entity/corporation to own and operate it, thus what is now Muni was born in 1912. It functioned not unlike the private monopolists.
Roads could be considered a government-owned monopoly, especially toll roads and/or bridges. Look at BATA and the Golden Gate Transit. They're basically two monopolists. Like the Land Park Line and East Sacramento Line, the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge don't really compete with one another. Again, in both cases the monopoly power is regulated.The streetcar operators certainly could have made more money with higher fares just as the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge certainly could be higher than the $6 it currently is. In both cases, there was governmental regulation or de facto regulation that prevented the charging of monopoly prices (the price at which the monopolists' profits are maximized). Regular surface roads are less comparable (not excludable) than highways (more excludable), but the same principle applies.
In any event, you're relying on government regulations (five cent fares and monopoly rights; gasoline taxes and tolls) and not the market to set prices. That's a non-market solution. The goal of any non-market solution should still be to get as close as possible to the Pareto optimal solution, absent some other political motivation. Economists aren't interested in equitable; they are interested in efficient. Pareto optimal is efficient but may not be equitable. That's not something that is done well because political concerns override economic efficiency. In all cases you have rent-seeking behavior and problems occur that get exasperated the farther out from Pareto optimal the government regulates the prices to. The five cent fare was too low, which one of the reasons why you had streetcars struggling. Buses were cheaper to run (in Seattle, the tracks were so bad it was cheaper to rip them out and install new track than attempt to repair them), lower capitol costs, but they didn't fare any better. It was a failed business model for a variety of effects. Tax payer roads, the existence of new affordable technology (the car/bus), the below market-rate price of fares.
And that's why, when you regulate prices, you regulate them to attempt to hit the Pareto optimal price. If you charge gas taxes commensurate with the cost of building roads and people chose to drive instead of taking streetcars which are likewise priced efficiently, so be it. If car travel was more expensive in toto and people still choose it over rail, that doesn't mean its a bad thing. Medicine is much more expensive today than it was during streetcar days, it's also a lot better.
There are no cows to see in the suburb I grew up. A few very small farms that survived as cutsey farmstands (or did; most are gone) but they'd be easy to miss.One would have to go 30 miles or so to get to a rural area.
Though, it'd still hard to see cows. Cornfields, potato fields or vineyards are more likely in Long Island.
Well, fine! There are cows grazing a couple of miles from my house; also near the high school where my kids went.
For as much as you read in some urbanist publications that people move to the suburbs and then complain about the odor from farms, etc, I have never really read an account of this actually happening. I've been to a lot of council meetings. I believe you can raise chickens in Denver if you want, also Lafayette, CO.
Well, maybe I didn't make myself clear. There are no cows in my suburb either, but there are close by in the rural areas. That is the nice thing about living on the edge of the metro area.
That's not exactly what I said. I suggested that people on lots zoned smaller intended for houses would not want their neighbors to be zoned for agricultural use. If you're buying in, say, a new subdivision, would YOU really want it to be legal for someone to set up an industrial farm on the neighboring lot? This is the kind of thing people want to prevent:
Understandable why the residents would be bothered, I think. It's not so much about moving into a neighborhood and complaining about existing neighbors or practices, but rather preventing future potential problems. And once a neighborhood transitions from agricultural land into suburbs, the residents reasonably have a different set of expectations.
Sometimes conflicts arise when the romantic image of living near farmland collides with the reality of living near farmland. And because sprawl is a continual process, what is on the edge of the urban fringe may be far from it 20 years from now.
That's not exactly what I said. I suggested that people on lots zoned smaller intended for houses would not want their neighbors to be zoned for agricultural use. If you're buying in, say, a new subdivision, would YOU really want it to be legal for someone to set up an industrial farm on the neighboring lot? This is the kind of thing people want to prevent:
Understandable why the residents would be bothered, I think. It's not so much about moving into a neighborhood and complaining about existing neighbors or practices, but rather preventing future potential problems. And once a neighborhood transitions from agricultural land into suburbs, the residents reasonably have a different set of expectations.
Sometimes conflicts arise when the romantic image of living near farmland collides with the reality of living near farmland. And because sprawl is a continual process, what is on the edge of the urban fringe may be far from it 20 years from now.
Article #1 (from seven years ago, mind you), refers to a hypothetical situation some time in the future, and says there have never been any complaints about this farm.
Article #2 discusses a farm operation that seems to be violating the law:
"And odors are just part of the problem. The farm is under a consent agreement with the Maryland Department of the Environment for failing to manage its animal wastes properly. Lagoons brimming with water and cattle manure overflowed twice last year, fouling a nearby stream, and crested again this month." Here's what the environmental community has to say about this proposed "right to farm" law:
"Large livestock herds, in particular, pose greater threats of polluting streams and ground water, they say, and "nuisances" such as odors, noise and dust often accompany serious environmental problems"
Article #3: "While officials and farmers in Harford, Baltimore, Carroll, Howard and Anne Arundel counties say that complaints by homeowners about neighboring farms are infrequent, they add that some newcomers arrive with misconceptions about farming."
I've seen a lot of apprehension toward "city people" on this site by country people who say they move to the country and try to change it to be more like "the city." (i.e. complaining about smelly farms, trying to attract big box stores, etc.)
Whenever I read something like this, I usually point out (if someone else hasn't already) that these aren't "city people" but suburbanites.
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There are cows grazing a couple of miles from my house; also near the high school where my kids went.
