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In 1830, 91.2% of the population lived in rural areas (defined by the Census Bureau as <2500 people). 1920 was the tipping point, when the population shifted ever so slightly from rural to urban, 48.8% lived in rural areas that year. So it's clear not too many people were hopping on trains of any kind to jobs in "the city". Most of these people were actually earning their living "by the sweat of their brow", e.g. in farming. What's changed is the type of jobs we do. https://www.census.gov/population/ce...ta/table-4.pdf
You like to think in cataclysmic terms, e.g. "They stretched the distance to work--highways and the automobile shattered it." That simply is not true.
Yes and no. Technology has gradually expanded it with horsedrawn streetcars, to electric streetcars, to railroad suburbs, to the automobile, to the highways. If you want a cataclysmic event, however, how about the Internet? My uncle works in Silicon Valley. He lives in a small town in Washington. How's that for "a total disconnect from where we live and where we work"? Of course, it's not. He's very connected. Just like people who lived on streetcar lines were connected even if it wasn't realistic any longer for them to walk to work, just like people who lived in railroad suburbs were connected even if it wasn't realistic any longer for them to walk to work.
In 1830, 91.2% of the population lived in rural areas (defined by the Census Bureau as <2500 people). 1920 was the tipping point, when the population shifted ever so slightly from rural to urban, 48.8% lived in rural areas that year. So it's clear not too many people were hopping on trains of any kind to jobs in "the city". Most of these people were actually earning their living "by the sweat of their brow", e.g. in farming. What's changed is the type of jobs we do. https://www.census.gov/population/ce...ta/table-4.pdf
Depends on region, it doesn't make sense to look at the country as a whole. Massachusetts was about 85% urban 100 years ago, little different from today. The south was much more rural than the national average. But only looking at those who were in urban areas, there has been a shift in commuting patterns and layout, though shattering is an exaggeration.
Depends on region, it doesn't make sense to look at the country as a whole. Massachusetts was about 85% urban 100 years ago, little different from today. The south was much more rural than the national average. But only looking at those who were in urban areas, there has been a shift in commuting patterns and layout, though shattering is an exaggeration.
True, but when 91% lived in rural areas, there weren't a lot living elsewhere.
Depends on region, it doesn't make sense to look at the country as a whole. Massachusetts was about 85% urban 100 years ago, little different from today. The south was much more rural than the national average. But only looking at those who were in urban areas, there has been a shift in commuting patterns and layout, though shattering is an exaggeration.
Of course there have. But what did MA look like before the industrial revolution? If you look at the earliest census, 1790, MA was 86.5% rural. By 1860 (end of the industrial revolution), it was 60% urban. By 1920, heyday of the streetcar and begin of the rise of the automobile, it was 90% urban. The post-1960 era it's become slightly more rural, more like 15% rural although part of that is due to reclassification of what is rural and urban.
That's kind of a tangent though. The real point is that as soon as people no longer had to live in walking distance from work, they became disconnected from work. As soon as that happened, walla, disconnect from work, spatial segregation.
Warner first laid out the various income groups in the Boston area. At the top of the economic totem pole were the upper middle and upper classes, which totaled about five percent of the population. People in this category tended to have multiple options for transportation and housing, and were marginally affected by the changes in streetcar service. Often they had the benefit of two or more homes and a choice of railroad, streetcar, or horse-and-buggy service. They often took advantage of their ability to move farther out into the countryside than any other social group, and set the standard for middle class aspirations. Following them was the central middle class, which made up some fifteen percent of the total population. They were successful businessmen or professionals with stable jobs. This stability meant that linear streetcar service to downtown Boston was adequate to get them to their destination each day, which varied little over their working lives. The next group down was the lower middle class, some twenty percent of the city's population. Their careers were not as stable, and hence often required the flexibility of crosstown streetcar service. Below them were the lower classes, who were tied to the central city because income restraints kept them out of the suburban market altogether.
The extension of streetcar service was the key to the spatial arrangement of these groups. The outermost band of central middle class settlement ended at the limit of linear streetcar service, which had grown from three-and-a-half to six miles from City Hall between 1873 and 1900. The lower middle class was constrained by the limit of crosstown streetcar services, which reached three-and-a-half miles from City Hall by 1900. Then there was the traditional two-mile ring that limited traditional pedestrian commuting. Taking these radii and tracing a circle around the center of Boston, Warner was able to trace out rough concentric circles of socioeconomic settlement in the Boston suburbs, not unlike von Thünen's model of agricultural patterns.
The difference is that transit is really expensive to build and operate so you can't really viably build a network that's robust enough to cover the entire area. Instead you get a spokes of the wheel effect. People can only be totally disconnected if they live along those spokes. If you're pro-transit and anti-car like wburg is, then you say that these people aren't totally disconnected becasue they're still connected by the being limited to living in the spoke arrangement. With the car, the entire area becomes open. But again, if you're anti-car being connected to your workplace by car is "totally disconnected" whereas being connected to your work place by transit is like totally spiritual connected or something.
Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to anybody else either.
Open unless you have to sit in traffic everywhere you go, then driving becomes more of a choir that a joy.
If one has everything they need within walking distance or transit distance, then they too have access to every area they need.
Seems to me it's all the more reason to support automobiles.
Far better granularity with respect to where and when people travel.
"Densification" seems to be promoted as a circular argument for promoting transit which doesn't support all the people taxed to pay for it.
Except when driving promotes gridlock traffic. In a large car centric metro with little to no transit, you can expect delays in driving time wherever you go.
Except when driving promotes gridlock traffic. In a large car centric metro with little to no transit, you can expect delays in driving time wherever you go.
Open unless you have to sit in traffic everywhere you go, then driving becomes more of a choir that a joy.
If one has everything they need within walking distance or transit distance, then they too have access to every area they need.
If one has everything they need within driving distance, then they too have access to every area they need. That's why I personally don't place much value on being able to walk to places.
If the ability to walk and use transit negatively impacts the ability to drive (San Francico downtown especially, Manhattan, Park Slope, for example), I'd just prefer to live somewhere else. I'd prefer to get places by car and live in an area that's more conducive to that.
Well, the Bay Area bad traffic. Most of it doesn't have particularly good transit aside from San Francisco. Even Oakland the transit is very spotty. But then I've never experienced gridlock anywhere in the Bay Area except downtown San Francisco where it's the norm. Pedestrians actually cause a lot of it. I remember trying to turn right and there was so many pedestrians I sat in that lane for about 10 minutes moving up one or two cars each cycle.
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