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True, most of Toronto's inner city neighbourhoods lost 20-40% of their population despite still being relatively intact. The main reason Toronto (pre 1998 city limits) is not less populated than in 1940/1950 is a lot of highrise construction since that time.
I suspect part of the reason many European cities have shown losses is laws make it difficult to build any new high rises while infill opportunities are limited. Besides shrinking household sizes, overcrowding lessened. I imagine there must have been situations where you had an extended family living in a small home that are rare now
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Still, there are a lot of cities that experienced growth within their city limits mainly because their city limits are very extensive and experienced greenfield development, but where the inner neighbourhoods still lost population (in bold below).
For 1950-2010, that describes NYC. I made a series of maps comparing urban densities for the largest American cities (in 1950) then and now.
We are perfectly willing to spend tax dollars subsidizing roads, bridges, Highway Patrol, airports -- underwriting infrastructure and operation of flying and driving.
But underwrite the cost of buses and light rail? Heaven forbid. Why it's socialism to use tax dollars to underwrite transportation systems that will be used by the poor folk to get to their service industry jobs.
Unless, of course, commuting becomes too big of a headache and the well-to-do start demanding light rail trains to get them to work. Then it's a horse of a different color.
Oh, for Pity's sake! Who has said that? I want a source and quote. Here in Colorado, we vote on all our taxes. We have voted ourselves in a light rail system, and a public transit system.
We are perfectly willing to spend tax dollars subsidizing roads, bridges, Highway Patrol, airports -- underwriting infrastructure and operation of flying and driving.
Not sure how airports help the suburbs; very few commute by aircraft, probably 1% of the 1%. It turns out that roads and bridges are needed by mass transit as well; in the case of bus mass transit, the SAME roads and bridges, though for some reason when an accounting like this comes up, all the cost of those roads and bridges are accounted to private auto users.
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But underwrite the cost of buses and light rail? Heaven forbid.
The existence of many heavily subsidized bus systems belies this claim.
Not sure how airports help the suburbs; very few commute by aircraft, probably 1% of the 1%. It turns out that roads and bridges are needed by mass transit as well; in the case of bus mass transit, the SAME roads and bridges, though for some reason when an accounting like this comes up, all the cost of those roads and bridges are accounted to private auto users.
Buses don't use all the roads, and not all roads are useful to buses. Prior to buses, similar transit ran on streetcars, whose tracks were removed partly to give more space to cars.
Buses don't use all the roads, and not all roads are useful to buses. Prior to buses, similar transit ran on streetcars, whose tracks were removed partly to give more space to cars.
Are we going to get into one of these inane arguments that roads are unnecessary like we used to have? Roads have been around a long time, e.g. "All roads lead to Rome", "The Road to Damascus" in the Bible. The "Good Samaritan" story involves a highway robber. Like it or not, roads are a part of infrastructure! And there's that "last mile" issue too, how do you get from the busway to your house?
Are we going to get into one of these inane arguments that roads are unnecessary like we used to have? Roads have been around a long time, e.g. "All roads lead to Rome", "The Road to Damascus" in the Bible. The "Good Samaritan" story involves a highway robber. Like it or not, roads are a part of infrastructure! And there's that "last mile" issue too, how do you get from the busway to your house?
I didn't say that, you missed my point. I'm not sure what this has to do with my post.
I didn't say that, you missed my point. I'm not sure what this has to do with my post.
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Originally Posted by nei
Buses don't use all the roads, and not all roads are useful to buses. Prior to buses, similar transit ran on streetcars, whose tracks were removed partly to give more space to cars.
Now streetcar tracks do require some sort of a road bed.
The roadbed is rather separate. The bolded still doesn't say what you said in your response.
In any case, in my post I did not say that roads are unnecessary. Nor that roads haven't been around for hundreds of years. Please respond to what I actually post? It's really hard and frustrating to have a converstaion otherwise.
The complaint was spending tax dollars to subsidize roads, bridges, Highway Patrol, airports -- "underwriting infrastructure and operation of flying and driving". When nybbler pointed out that roads are used by buses too, your response was "not all the roads", and "before we had buses we had streetcars". By that, I thought we were getting started on one of these "roads are unnecessary" exchanges, yet again.
I think a public road system is mentioned in the Constitution as one of the jobs of the federal government to facilitate commerce. Of course we are going to spend tax money on it and all that goes with it, e.g. bridges and a highway patrol.
Buses don't use all the roads, and not all roads are useful to buses. Prior to buses, similar transit ran on streetcars, whose tracks were removed partly to give more space to cars.
Streetcars required roads too, all but the top layer. In my area there's still the "Mississippi loop" and the "Erie Loop" bus routes which trace the old streetcar routes. The roads which aren't useful to buses are neighborhood roads, mostly; all the main roads and all the highways have bus routes running on them.
My point being that
1) We do in fact have bus systems
2) Even accounting for the shared bus/car infrastructure entirely as car infrastructure, we're still subsidizing bus systems heavily.
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