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My favorite theory is that the post WW2-era American value shifted to personal liberty and the American dream: your home, your picket fence, and your car. You c

My favorite theory is that the post WW2-era American value shifted to personal liberty and the American dream: your home, your picket fence, and your car. You choose where you go, when you go, and how you get there. Drive on those new interstates! Take the family for a picnic. Go surfing! How can you be truly independent and live that perfect magazine cover life if you’ve got to wait on the 9:27 to take you to the B line so you won’t be late to work?

michaelt 8y ago
I think the_mitsuhiko is wondering not about rail projects specifically, but about a loss of confidence about performing large-scale projects in the abstract sense, independent of what the project is for. For example, in 1930 it seemed feasible to build the Hoover dam; in 1950 it seemed feasible to build the interstate highway system; in 1960 it seemed feasible to land a man on the moon. Now, in 2018, people think it isn't feasible to build some train stations. And those people might be right! What happened to our ability (practically, politically, and financially) to get such things done?
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  > Now, in 2018, people think it isn't feasible to build some train stations. And those people might be right! What happened to our ability (practically, politically, and financially) to get such things done? Over time and increasing population there is a evolutionary niche filling kind of process that occurs within social, political, economic, cultural and other axes/planes/spheres. After the density of these filled niches increase sufficiently over some threshold, our civilization experiences a calcification of movement across the niches. Each niche acts as a middleman to extract some portion of energy to successfully navigate across them. This takes the form of some kind of concession, trade, grant, swap, boon, promise, etc. Fill a path with enough niches that didn't use to exist before, and we experience it as "we can't get it done" because the cumulative energetic cost rises above a tolerable amount. Historically, the emergent property in most capitalist structures appears to naturally tend towards influencing government agents via the principal agent challenge to support/enforce increasingly rentier behavior over time and deviate from capitalist structures; I personally believe this is due to scaling issues (Adam Smith was not a fan of the kind of large-scale capitalism we take for granted today). This wasn't supposed to happen according to some economic schools of thought, but here we are. And niche filling, and use of our government to enforce stakeholder extraction claims, appear as another form that this behavior takes.
- closeparen 8y ago
  For starters, the political system started caring about the concerns of average people, and stopped letting grand visionaries destroy people’s neighborhoods for the greater good. Having to appease each and every household you affect will put a damper on things.
oftenwrong 8y ago
Half of it is what people wanted, and the other half is what the people were given. The Federal Government directly created today's heavily suburbanised America through its policies: https://www.historysouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-Other-22Subsidized-Housing22-Federal-Aid-To-Suburbanization-.pdf https://www.historysouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-...
intertextuality 8y ago
> How can you be truly independent and live that perfect magazine cover life if you’ve got to wait on the 9:27 to take you to the B line so you won’t be late to work? By that stance, no one living in Chicago, NY, or any city with public transit are "truly independent", or whatever. Waiting a few mins for a train or bus is no different than being stuck in traffic. When I lived in Chicago my quality of life went up precisely because I didn't need to use my car. I never had to worry about finding parking. All I needed to do was learn some of the bus timetables and where the CTA lines generally were.
- mikehollinger 8y ago
  Agreed! I lived in Taipei for a couple of years, and currently am spending some time in NY. I was being a bit flippant. :-)

michaelt 8y ago

I think the_mitsuhiko is wondering not about rail projects specifically, but about a loss of confidence about performing large-scale projects in the abstract sense, independent of what the project is for. For example, in 1930 it seemed feasible to build the Hoover dam; in 1950 it seemed feasible to build the interstate highway system; in 1960 it seemed feasible to land a man on the moon. Now, in 2018, people think it isn't feasible to build some train stations. And those people might be right! What happened to our ability (practically, politically, and financially) to get such things done?

yourapostasy 8y ago
> Now, in 2018, people think it isn't feasible to build some train stations. And those people might be right! What happened to our ability (practically, politically, and financially) to get such things done? Over time and increasing population there is a evolutionary niche filling kind of process that occurs within social, political, economic, cultural and other axes/planes/spheres. After the density of these filled niches increase sufficiently over some threshold, our civilization experiences a calcification of movement across the niches. Each niche acts as a middleman to extract some portion of energy to successfully navigate across them. This takes the form of some kind of concession, trade, grant, swap, boon, promise, etc. Fill a path with enough niches that didn't use to exist before, and we experience it as "we can't get it done" because the cumulative energetic cost rises above a tolerable amount. Historically, the emergent property in most capitalist structures appears to naturally tend towards influencing government agents via the principal agent challenge to support/enforce increasingly rentier behavior over time and deviate from capitalist structures; I personally believe this is due to scaling issues (Adam Smith was not a fan of the kind of large-scale capitalism we take for granted today). This wasn't supposed to happen according to some economic schools of thought, but here we are. And niche filling, and use of our government to enforce stakeholder extraction claims, appear as another form that this behavior takes.
closeparen 8y ago
For starters, the political system started caring about the concerns of average people, and stopped letting grand visionaries destroy people’s neighborhoods for the greater good. Having to appease each and every household you affect will put a damper on things.

oftenwrong 8y ago

Half of it is what people wanted, and the other half is what the people were given. The Federal Government directly created today's heavily suburbanised America through its policies: https://www.historysouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-Other-22Subsidized-Housing22-Federal-Aid-To-Suburbanization-.pdf https://www.historysouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-...

intertextuality 8y ago

> How can you be truly independent and live that perfect magazine cover life if you’ve got to wait on the 9:27 to take you to the B line so you won’t be late to work? By that stance, no one living in Chicago, NY, or any city with public transit are "truly independent", or whatever. Waiting a few mins for a train or bus is no different than being stuck in traffic. When I lived in Chicago my quality of life went up precisely because I didn't need to use my car. I never had to worry about finding parking. All I needed to do was learn some of the bus timetables and where the CTA lines generally were.

mikehollinger 8y ago
Agreed! I lived in Taipei for a couple of years, and currently am spending some time in NY. I was being a bit flippant. :-)