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> I don't really care about that. The enabling innovation begetting suburbs was the concept of highways, roads dedicated to cars to the exclusion of non-cars.

> I don't really care about that. The enabling innovation begetting suburbs was the concept of highways, roads dedicated to cars to the exclusion of non-cars. From this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement To this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway#History In response to jaywalking? Sure, I guess, a bit. But mostly because of traffic, congestion. > Unless you believe Robert Moses is the reason these laws were passed. Exactly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_State_Parkway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_State_Parkway At the time, New York state was the center of the universe. Whatever happened in Albany became the template for federal policy. (Another example is the New Deal.) Moses was the guy who figured out how to make it happen. His nickname was something like "Master of Albany". Laws are nothing without funding. Moses invented completely novel financial schemes, often bordering on fraud and theft. These innovations were then replicated nationwide. With little democratic oversight or even awareness.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Again, roads were allocated to cars at the ezclusion of pedestrians in the 1910s, and not in highways. Cars naturally exclude other modes of transportation by posing a deadly danger. There's no amount of source dumping you can do to get around the concept of causality. Robert Moses is not the one who killed the pre-car street. Cars and their drivers did by posing a deadly threat to anyone there.
- specialist 5y ago
  > In this case the government didn't do central planning. It didn't pick winners and losers. It went with what the free market decided. Jaywalking -> Freedom Markets™ -> Highways No central planning required.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    The person I was replying to didn't talk about highways. They talked about car-dependence and the death of the pedestrian-first street. That happened with car drivers killing people and scaring the rest into yielding the street, and government then formalizing that to avoid literal deaths. That is to say, the market decided that cars went first and fuck everyone else. Highways were not the first roads where cars drove out people. The first roads where that happens were just city roads when cars started proliferating. It's almost like the private, selfish choices of people can lead to negative outcomes for all of society.

sudosysgen 5y ago

Again, roads were allocated to cars at the ezclusion of pedestrians in the 1910s, and not in highways. Cars naturally exclude other modes of transportation by posing a deadly danger. There's no amount of source dumping you can do to get around the concept of causality. Robert Moses is not the one who killed the pre-car street. Cars and their drivers did by posing a deadly threat to anyone there.

specialist 5y ago
> In this case the government didn't do central planning. It didn't pick winners and losers. It went with what the free market decided. Jaywalking -> Freedom Markets™ -> Highways No central planning required.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  The person I was replying to didn't talk about highways. They talked about car-dependence and the death of the pedestrian-first street. That happened with car drivers killing people and scaring the rest into yielding the street, and government then formalizing that to avoid literal deaths. That is to say, the market decided that cars went first and fuck everyone else. Highways were not the first roads where cars drove out people. The first roads where that happens were just city roads when cars started proliferating. It's almost like the private, selfish choices of people can lead to negative outcomes for all of society.