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That's one version. Caro's The Power Broker details how Bob Moses was the agent of the powerful forces behind the automobile. The only stakeholders not repres

That's one version. Caro's The Power Broker details how Bob Moses was the agent of the powerful forces behind the automobile. The only stakeholders not represented, or even consulted, were the average taxpaying citizens. Any dissent was ruthlessly squashed. Urban planners and normal citizens have been critical since the very beginning. The debate really picked up after WWII, with the resumption of peace time economy. By the 50s, the experts had enough real world data -- more highways creates more congestion, focus on cars to the exclusion of mass transit physically cannot work -- to invalidate the entire premise. Eighty years later, here we are still clutching at pearls, trying not to faint. As if there's anything left to debate. I shouldn't be shocked. But somehow I still am. Or maybe just disappointed.

ipnon 6y ago
The history of the automobile in America is longer. Until the 1940s you will struggle to find detrimental side effects of automobile adoption. The automobile did for the town what the railroad did for the city. The negative effects of the automobile on American society, as you rightly point, are an effect of the automobiles runaway success. We passed the point where the automobile was a net positive around the 1950s. This is when planners like Moses begin forcing further adoption, that was rightly opposed at the time.
- specialist 6y ago
  Ya, Caro's summary is very measured, which I think older, calmer me now agrees with: The problem was never the automobile per se, but the emphasis on the automobile to the exclusion of everything else. Starting with land use policies which only accommodate automobile centric development.
  - megameter 6y ago
    The biggest error in early auto policy, in my opinion, was the emphasis on straight-line speed over continuous flow. The first cars were not that fast and did not accelerate easily, so it makes some sense that there would be advocacy to get every last bit out of the engine through highway design. Add to that the requisite hype for a new, impactful technology and you get the approach that paved the earth. But we have gradually come to realize the point of traffic calming, roundabouts, transit-oriented design and other tools that make people stigmergically decide on appropriate trip plans and driving parameters.
    - specialist 6y ago
      I love this kind of theory, speculation. Thanks.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
If it truly was about reaching a density point where cars no longer make sense we'd have built rail. Why didn't we? Transportation is fundamentally about time and money trade-offs. Supply goes up and cost comes down or vise versa. If you want cost low you gotta have a lot of supply. It doesn't matter whether the wheels are steel or rubber you just need to have the supply. For an economy to flourish people need to be able to not be trapped going to a job or shopping at a particular store because the cost of getting there is workable but that is exactly the reality that transit scarcity creates. If it was just about the cars they wouldn't have spent the 60s and 70s killing mass transit projects while also killing highways. Infrastructure development in the US ground to a halt because in the 60s the upper middle class managed to get far away from the poors for the first time in history and they wanted to keep it that way by keeping the cost of living outside the inner city from getting too low.
- specialist 6y ago
  Moses' innovation was getting the poor to unwittingly fund the segregation, looting the cities to fund the suburbs. An innovation then copied nationwide. I'd only be guessing, but I think the highways and freeways were then defunded in turn because those same financiers couldn't figure out how to profit from further investment. Or maybe they decided to end their partnership with organized labor. Or maybe cashing in other rent seeking opportunities, like ending usury protections enabling explosion of consumer debt, were more promising. Who knows.

ipnon 6y ago

The history of the automobile in America is longer. Until the 1940s you will struggle to find detrimental side effects of automobile adoption. The automobile did for the town what the railroad did for the city. The negative effects of the automobile on American society, as you rightly point, are an effect of the automobiles runaway success. We passed the point where the automobile was a net positive around the 1950s. This is when planners like Moses begin forcing further adoption, that was rightly opposed at the time.

specialist 6y ago
Ya, Caro's summary is very measured, which I think older, calmer me now agrees with: The problem was never the automobile per se, but the emphasis on the automobile to the exclusion of everything else. Starting with land use policies which only accommodate automobile centric development.
- megameter 6y ago
  The biggest error in early auto policy, in my opinion, was the emphasis on straight-line speed over continuous flow. The first cars were not that fast and did not accelerate easily, so it makes some sense that there would be advocacy to get every last bit out of the engine through highway design. Add to that the requisite hype for a new, impactful technology and you get the approach that paved the earth. But we have gradually come to realize the point of traffic calming, roundabouts, transit-oriented design and other tools that make people stigmergically decide on appropriate trip plans and driving parameters.
  - specialist 6y ago
    I love this kind of theory, speculation. Thanks.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

If it truly was about reaching a density point where cars no longer make sense we'd have built rail. Why didn't we? Transportation is fundamentally about time and money trade-offs. Supply goes up and cost comes down or vise versa. If you want cost low you gotta have a lot of supply. It doesn't matter whether the wheels are steel or rubber you just need to have the supply. For an economy to flourish people need to be able to not be trapped going to a job or shopping at a particular store because the cost of getting there is workable but that is exactly the reality that transit scarcity creates. If it was just about the cars they wouldn't have spent the 60s and 70s killing mass transit projects while also killing highways. Infrastructure development in the US ground to a halt because in the 60s the upper middle class managed to get far away from the poors for the first time in history and they wanted to keep it that way by keeping the cost of living outside the inner city from getting too low.

specialist 6y ago
Moses' innovation was getting the poor to unwittingly fund the segregation, looting the cities to fund the suburbs. An innovation then copied nationwide. I'd only be guessing, but I think the highways and freeways were then defunded in turn because those same financiers couldn't figure out how to profit from further investment. Or maybe they decided to end their partnership with organized labor. Or maybe cashing in other rent seeking opportunities, like ending usury protections enabling explosion of consumer debt, were more promising. Who knows.