5 ms·

Hum. Few sparse thoughts: élites I may know have mostly a marginal interest in public transportation witch is making money through it. If it's not profitable i

by xte 8y ago

Hum. Few sparse thoughts: élites I may know have mostly a marginal interest in public transportation witch is making money through it. If it's not profitable is of no interest. At least European élites, with the notable but marginal exception of very few politics or other VIPs move on private transport not public one. Interest in public transport have political and military interest for both reduce/control ability of individual to move and possible vulnerabilities in case of war scenarios but again "efficient public transportation for the masses" is not really in any bullshit-free agenda's. The sole political/military push toward "personal car free" society, concentrated in megacities serve the purpose to easier control people: - control a city require few manpower than a vast area, more in detail to control a city you need only a fraction of human inside on your side, to control a vast area you need more human on your side than the "target"/"enemy"; - control a city is easier simply because a city consume food, energy, water etc but do not produce most of it nor it can so cutting supply means cutting city off; - a city is a nice and easy target: you can shoot and being sure to create significant damage; - public transportation is nice: lock it (it's easier than lock many individual's vehicles, especially if they are not connected so not easy to disable en masse from remote) and anyone will be on foot. I do not really see other interest. Maybe there are economical interest from the enterprises that can gain big money on creation and maintenance of public transport network...

Bizarro 8y ago
Yes, control is always a nice side-effect for the statists when they busy-body around looking for a crisis to fix and solve by limiting something or another that those evil humans (not enlightened like himself) are doing.
TulliusCicero 8y ago
> The sole political/military push toward "personal car free" society, concentrated in megacities serve the purpose to easier control people: People being concentrated in larger cities is mostly an outcome that comes from the free market. Higher population levels helps bring about higher levels of economic productivity, and people go where there are jobs. Having decent public transit -- and walk and bike options, for that matter -- in urban areas is just good policy. No conspiracies necessary, it's just good to have more options, especially more geometrically efficient ones when space is at a premium. Trying to ignore transit just gets you to LA's position, where they built mountains of freeways and got the worst traffic in the country in return, with poor options to bypass that traffic for most of the local population.
- xte 8y ago
  Without conspiracy can you tell the name of a sustainable and evolvable magacity? I found exactly NO one, not only of existing one's but also hypothetical in some architect's published ideas. The first and most important reason is space: a city can't evolve because the lack of space. While it might be possible in theory grow the city and after have people moving from the old part to a new one to demolish and rebuild the new one no city I know of have ever being able to do so in practice. I do not know big not-crowded not polluted cities. I do not know any "safe" city in terms of various kind of possible events from floods to earthquake to terrorist attack to military attacks... I do not want to say that's there are conspiracy-like factors to push towards megacities but I only see a big prevalence of negative things than positive, so no reason to push nor want to be in even small cities...
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    > Without conspiracy can you tell the name of a sustainable and evolvable magacity? What does this even mean? > so no reason to push nor want to be in even small cities... Well it's easy, cities are way more economically productive than rural areas, so they create more jobs. Creating effective businesses benefits from a larger local market both in terms of hiring specialists of various sorts, and also in terms of targeting customers (for local businesses like restaurants). If this wasn't true, you'd see more companies like Google dumping their HQ's into rural areas with cheap housing and cheap wages. They don't though, because their workers don't want to live out there.
    - xte 8y ago
      My English is poor so sometimes I write convoluted sentences since I do not know how to construct them, sorry, I mean did you know ANY sustainable reasonably big city? I do not know any. Cities might seems to be more productive since our developed countries switch from production to tertiary sector but that's thanks to the rest of productive world that's now in easter Europe, Asia, Africa, South America etc. So in general cities are not more economically productive, it only offer more options per land area since there is more concentration but with the exception of tertiary sector you simply can't have industry, agriculture, breeding, ... in cities and well... We all need to eat, we all use industry-made product from bottom up. The problem of "countryside" is the concentration of alternatives per land area, you may have nearby a sole productive and attractive activity, if something happen to it you might have to go far away to found another option. In cities being concentrated you normally have more options nearby. However this is most a matter of economic organization that's still do not understand to much how to use territory than a mere thing from being in the countryside itself. Perhaps the most sustainable model we actually have in place is the Riviera one's with enough space to evolve and enough concentration of opportunities. Google HQ is a tertiary sector activity and require hi-speed connections so a city is a nice place for it, however did you know where most data centers are? Did you know where we produce electricity for them? Concrete, Steel, Plastic, ... that is needed for them? That's a big point that many today forget but in case of real crisis that's represent a real and dangerous problem because if producer are not anymore in your country and are not anymore willing to work/commerce with you, you are TFU. That's a thing USA and even more UK should have learned from China, we western Europeans should have learned from Easter EU...

by xte 8y ago

Bizarro 8y ago

Yes, control is always a nice side-effect for the statists when they busy-body around looking for a crisis to fix and solve by limiting something or another that those evil humans (not enlightened like himself) are doing.

TulliusCicero 8y ago

> The sole political/military push toward "personal car free" society, concentrated in megacities serve the purpose to easier control people: People being concentrated in larger cities is mostly an outcome that comes from the free market. Higher population levels helps bring about higher levels of economic productivity, and people go where there are jobs. Having decent public transit -- and walk and bike options, for that matter -- in urban areas is just good policy. No conspiracies necessary, it's just good to have more options, especially more geometrically efficient ones when space is at a premium. Trying to ignore transit just gets you to LA's position, where they built mountains of freeways and got the worst traffic in the country in return, with poor options to bypass that traffic for most of the local population.

xte 8y ago
Without conspiracy can you tell the name of a sustainable and evolvable magacity? I found exactly NO one, not only of existing one's but also hypothetical in some architect's published ideas. The first and most important reason is space: a city can't evolve because the lack of space. While it might be possible in theory grow the city and after have people moving from the old part to a new one to demolish and rebuild the new one no city I know of have ever being able to do so in practice. I do not know big not-crowded not polluted cities. I do not know any "safe" city in terms of various kind of possible events from floods to earthquake to terrorist attack to military attacks... I do not want to say that's there are conspiracy-like factors to push towards megacities but I only see a big prevalence of negative things than positive, so no reason to push nor want to be in even small cities...
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  > Without conspiracy can you tell the name of a sustainable and evolvable magacity? What does this even mean? > so no reason to push nor want to be in even small cities... Well it's easy, cities are way more economically productive than rural areas, so they create more jobs. Creating effective businesses benefits from a larger local market both in terms of hiring specialists of various sorts, and also in terms of targeting customers (for local businesses like restaurants). If this wasn't true, you'd see more companies like Google dumping their HQ's into rural areas with cheap housing and cheap wages. They don't though, because their workers don't want to live out there.
  - xte 8y ago
    My English is poor so sometimes I write convoluted sentences since I do not know how to construct them, sorry, I mean did you know ANY sustainable reasonably big city? I do not know any. Cities might seems to be more productive since our developed countries switch from production to tertiary sector but that's thanks to the rest of productive world that's now in easter Europe, Asia, Africa, South America etc. So in general cities are not more economically productive, it only offer more options per land area since there is more concentration but with the exception of tertiary sector you simply can't have industry, agriculture, breeding, ... in cities and well... We all need to eat, we all use industry-made product from bottom up. The problem of "countryside" is the concentration of alternatives per land area, you may have nearby a sole productive and attractive activity, if something happen to it you might have to go far away to found another option. In cities being concentrated you normally have more options nearby. However this is most a matter of economic organization that's still do not understand to much how to use territory than a mere thing from being in the countryside itself. Perhaps the most sustainable model we actually have in place is the Riviera one's with enough space to evolve and enough concentration of opportunities. Google HQ is a tertiary sector activity and require hi-speed connections so a city is a nice place for it, however did you know where most data centers are? Did you know where we produce electricity for them? Concrete, Steel, Plastic, ... that is needed for them? That's a big point that many today forget but in case of real crisis that's represent a real and dangerous problem because if producer are not anymore in your country and are not anymore willing to work/commerce with you, you are TFU. That's a thing USA and even more UK should have learned from China, we western Europeans should have learned from Easter EU...