3 ms·
Somewhere north of 4Bn people live in cities. The vast majority of which are nowhere near the utopia hinted at. Perhaps somewhere on the order of 100-200M peo
by bborud 5y ago
Somewhere north of 4Bn people live in cities. The vast majority of which are nowhere near the utopia hinted at. Perhaps somewhere on the order of 100-200M people live in sufficiently dense and modern cities that are even capable of envisioning a path towards zero powered personal transportation.
In addition, roughly 4Bn people who do not live in cities. Densely populated and well funded or otherwise. So no, even if we are to consider only the first half of the population, your assertion does not hold in any meaningful sense.
If the goal is to get rid of powered personal transport then it begs the question "why?". Is this really a useful goal? What problem are we really trying to solve? For half the human population it makes very little sense, which means that adopting it as a sort of universal solution to all problems is a bit silly.
I can recommend reading Hans Rosling's "Factfulness" for some perspective. Because the book talks a lot about perspective and why most people in the richest part of the world tend to have a very hard time understanding what it means to be in the various wealth segments. In particular it bears thinking about what access to efficient transport means in terms of quality of life.
First you need to understand the numbers, then you need to focus on solutions. And then change can happen. The thread ancestor makes no effort to even look in this direction.
- roenxi 5y ago> ...it begs the question "why?"... If roads were only for arterial traffic flows that would enable very high density areas without roads or parking, where people could walk to all the places they want to get to. It'd be cheaper for everyone, probably have better health outcomes and be a bit more communal. Plus safer for children because they can't be run over. Just look at how much space is wasted leaving it empty for light amounts of traffic. And I'll also add that you are the only one who wants this to be utopian. It is transport policy. That is pretty mundane, mostly practical details and not all that exciting. The goal here would be maybe increase urban density by 20%-40%, and there are trade offs to the benefits. If you think that is a utopia then I admire how achievable your goals are. > I can recommend reading Hans Rosling's "Factfulness"... In which you will discover that most people can't even afford cars and nevertheless the globe keeps spinning.
- bborud 5y ago> In which you will discover that most people can't even afford cars and nevertheless the globe keeps spinning. Then I think you have to read the book again and pay attention to what happens when people move between the bottom 3 tiers. He also spends some time describing the "view from above" problem that we experience. I think you missed the entire point of the book. Solutions have to provide a plan for the majority of human kind. Not just the top few percent. Especially since the bottom two tiers are moving really rapidly.