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This is a chicken-and-egg problem. The US only has a few dense regions because suburban housing typologies strung together with highways have been dominant. If

This is a chicken-and-egg problem. The US only has a few dense regions because suburban housing typologies strung together with highways have been dominant. If you consider that public transit makes areas walkable, creates street-level shops, restaurants, and cafes, and densifies areas as a result, then creating public transit is an argument for creating density.

Goladus 11y ago
This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Only if you ignore the fact that most of the US population centers developed long before the automobile. The US only has a few dense regions because suburban housing typologies strung together with highways have been dominant. Suburbs are largely a 20th century phenomenon and rail was very important in the history of the US. US population spread itself out for primarily for economic reasons (and also likely socio-political reasons).
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  The population centers, yes, but the population growth, and residential areas developed for it, largely after. Population of the US in 1900 was roughly 76 million. It's 316 million today. Auto ownership took off in the 1950s (after WWII and the post-war boom began). At that time, total population was 151 million, less than half that today. Both of the two most populous states in the U.S. (California and Texas) assumed that position well after the dominance of the Automobile. California in 1960, Texas in the 1990s. California's population has increased 3.6x since 1950, Texas has by 3.4x. The third-ranked state, New York, by 1.3x. Florida, set to surpass New York in the near future, has grown 7x in the same period. That's all post-auto era growth. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html
  - Goladus 11y ago
    Still, the point is that the transportation systems in the US have co-evolved with the growth and spread of its population. So I suppose you could technically say it's a "chicken-egg" problem. But only in the sense that the "chicken-egg" actually does have a real answer and that answer is they evolved together. There were various major decisions made along the way along with millions of everyday choices made by individuals.
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      transportation systems in the US have co-evolved with the growth and spread of its population For the post-1950 period, I disagree. The car was established. Development followed auto-driven growth dynamics.
      - Goladus 11y ago
        Because cars happen to be a very convenient way to travel between an arbitrary number of relatively small population centers spread out over a wide area, which makes sense given the geography and economics of North America during that period.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  transportation systems in the US have co-evolved with the growth and spread of its population For the post-1950 period, I disagree. The car was established. Development followed auto-driven growth dynamics. Land use is a regional issue at the scale of metro areas (or CMSAs). Not nationwide. Average annual mileage for the typical American is 15,000 miles/year. That's 40 miles/day, or 20 miles one-way radius. Even assuming no weekend travel (all commutes are work related) you're still at 75 miles, or 37.5 miles one-way. That is: transportation use is a local phenomenon. Distribution of population centers across the country doesn't matter, land use within those centers does. And those patterns have developed and overwhelmingly been driven by auto use for the past 65 - 75 years, with very few exceptions (e.g., NYC).
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Your figure makes more sense as a per driver figure. There are about 100 million Americans who do not have a license to drive (and reason to believe that most of them do not drive illegally): http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/onh2p4.htm http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/onh2p4.htm The passenger vehicle fleet is also about 250 million (estimates arriving at that figure are including pickups that are used as cars). I guess the typical American might be a modal driver, but it seems odd to use a definition of typical that discards ~1/3 of the population in question.
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      That utterly misses the point that 1) most households have at least one driver, and that the typical distances travelled on a daily basis are consistent with suburban, auto-centric land-use patterns. You can corroborate this with other sources, e.g., US Census commute patterns. Insurance and US DOT should also have driving stats.
      - maxerickson 11y ago
        It doesn't miss any point, it's just pedantic. The mean American vehicle doesn't even go 15,000 miles a year (there's only ~12,000 available according to gov statistics), it's a little impossible for the mean American to do so. Of course average and typical have other meanings than the arithmetic mean (but I pointed out a problem with using the numbers as the mode in the previous reply). I'm not going so far as to argue about whatever point it is you are making, I'm pointing out that somewhere in either your characterization of the numbers you are using or the numbers themselves, there is an inaccuracy.

Goladus 11y ago

This is a chicken-and-egg problem. Only if you ignore the fact that most of the US population centers developed long before the automobile. The US only has a few dense regions because suburban housing typologies strung together with highways have been dominant. Suburbs are largely a 20th century phenomenon and rail was very important in the history of the US. US population spread itself out for primarily for economic reasons (and also likely socio-political reasons).

dredmorbius 11y ago
The population centers, yes, but the population growth, and residential areas developed for it, largely after. Population of the US in 1900 was roughly 76 million. It's 316 million today. Auto ownership took off in the 1950s (after WWII and the post-war boom began). At that time, total population was 151 million, less than half that today. Both of the two most populous states in the U.S. (California and Texas) assumed that position well after the dominance of the Automobile. California in 1960, Texas in the 1990s. California's population has increased 3.6x since 1950, Texas has by 3.4x. The third-ranked state, New York, by 1.3x. Florida, set to surpass New York in the near future, has grown 7x in the same period. That's all post-auto era growth. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html
- Goladus 11y ago
  Still, the point is that the transportation systems in the US have co-evolved with the growth and spread of its population. So I suppose you could technically say it's a "chicken-egg" problem. But only in the sense that the "chicken-egg" actually does have a real answer and that answer is they evolved together. There were various major decisions made along the way along with millions of everyday choices made by individuals.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    transportation systems in the US have co-evolved with the growth and spread of its population For the post-1950 period, I disagree. The car was established. Development followed auto-driven growth dynamics.
    - Goladus 11y ago
      Because cars happen to be a very convenient way to travel between an arbitrary number of relatively small population centers spread out over a wide area, which makes sense given the geography and economics of North America during that period.
dredmorbius 11y ago
transportation systems in the US have co-evolved with the growth and spread of its population For the post-1950 period, I disagree. The car was established. Development followed auto-driven growth dynamics. Land use is a regional issue at the scale of metro areas (or CMSAs). Not nationwide. Average annual mileage for the typical American is 15,000 miles/year. That's 40 miles/day, or 20 miles one-way radius. Even assuming no weekend travel (all commutes are work related) you're still at 75 miles, or 37.5 miles one-way. That is: transportation use is a local phenomenon. Distribution of population centers across the country doesn't matter, land use within those centers does. And those patterns have developed and overwhelmingly been driven by auto use for the past 65 - 75 years, with very few exceptions (e.g., NYC).
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Your figure makes more sense as a per driver figure. There are about 100 million Americans who do not have a license to drive (and reason to believe that most of them do not drive illegally): http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/onh2p4.htm http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/onh2p4.htm The passenger vehicle fleet is also about 250 million (estimates arriving at that figure are including pickups that are used as cars). I guess the typical American might be a modal driver, but it seems odd to use a definition of typical that discards ~1/3 of the population in question.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    That utterly misses the point that 1) most households have at least one driver, and that the typical distances travelled on a daily basis are consistent with suburban, auto-centric land-use patterns. You can corroborate this with other sources, e.g., US Census commute patterns. Insurance and US DOT should also have driving stats.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      It doesn't miss any point, it's just pedantic. The mean American vehicle doesn't even go 15,000 miles a year (there's only ~12,000 available according to gov statistics), it's a little impossible for the mean American to do so. Of course average and typical have other meanings than the arithmetic mean (but I pointed out a problem with using the numbers as the mode in the previous reply). I'm not going so far as to argue about whatever point it is you are making, I'm pointing out that somewhere in either your characterization of the numbers you are using or the numbers themselves, there is an inaccuracy.