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It's possible there are far more negative externalities than you're accounting for. What's 600% ROI if it turns out it contributed significantly to inequality,

It's possible there are far more negative externalities than you're accounting for. What's 600% ROI if it turns out it contributed significantly to inequality, both for income and race? How negatively has that effected the nation, or even just the economy, over decades? It's important to note that the argument is not as simple as "highways or no highways", but more nuanced, as perhaps 10% harder to accomplish yields a 50% reduction in problems. Finding that sane middle ground is hard, but we should be careful not to reduce the problem to such simplicity that the many of the important parts of the solution are no longer even assessed.

ETH_start 4y ago
>>What's 600% ROI if it turns out it contributed significantly to inequality, both for income and race? I don't see improvements in the physical economy appreciably increasing inequality. Most inequality seems to step from housing scarcity driving up housing costs. [1] (see Figure 3) Improvements in transportation could even mitigate this sort of inequality by overcoming spatial misallocations caused by housing scarcity in the highest productivity zones. [2] [1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2015a_rognlie.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2015a_r... [2] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388
- kbenson 4y ago
  The context you're missing, which is being alluded to in many comments, is that when the highways were put in place and they chose to put them through cities instead of around them politicians and planners had to choose where they went and what neighborhoods they bisected and displaced. Which neighborhoods do you think bore the brunt of that problem? Where do you think they decided to put the highways that made it harder to reach different parts of the city, by relegating city traffic to specific overpasses and underpasses? Class and race had a lot to do with it in many cases. You've possibly heard of "the wrong side of the tracks". That statement could be considered even more accurate in many modern context if stated as "the wrong side of the highway". The interesting part is why it's apt though, which is what we're talking about. For one take on this, see https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-infrastructure-construction-segregation https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-infra...
  - overlordalex 4y ago
    > highways that made it harder to reach different parts of the city One blatant example of exclusionary infrastructure was Robert Moses building bridges in New York that were too low for busses to pass under, in order to discourage travel to his parks and beaches. I can also recommend the Well There's Your Problem podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oq0u2i4iHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oq0u2i4iHc

ETH_start 4y ago

>>What's 600% ROI if it turns out it contributed significantly to inequality, both for income and race? I don't see improvements in the physical economy appreciably increasing inequality. Most inequality seems to step from housing scarcity driving up housing costs. [1] (see Figure 3) Improvements in transportation could even mitigate this sort of inequality by overcoming spatial misallocations caused by housing scarcity in the highest productivity zones. [2] [1] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2015a_rognlie.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2015a_r... [2] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388

kbenson 4y ago
The context you're missing, which is being alluded to in many comments, is that when the highways were put in place and they chose to put them through cities instead of around them politicians and planners had to choose where they went and what neighborhoods they bisected and displaced. Which neighborhoods do you think bore the brunt of that problem? Where do you think they decided to put the highways that made it harder to reach different parts of the city, by relegating city traffic to specific overpasses and underpasses? Class and race had a lot to do with it in many cases. You've possibly heard of "the wrong side of the tracks". That statement could be considered even more accurate in many modern context if stated as "the wrong side of the highway". The interesting part is why it's apt though, which is what we're talking about. For one take on this, see https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-infrastructure-construction-segregation https://www.history.com/news/interstate-highway-system-infra...
- overlordalex 4y ago
  > highways that made it harder to reach different parts of the city One blatant example of exclusionary infrastructure was Robert Moses building bridges in New York that were too low for busses to pass under, in order to discourage travel to his parks and beaches. I can also recommend the Well There's Your Problem podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oq0u2i4iHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oq0u2i4iHc