The Transit/Booze Nexus

Carl Zimmer and Paul Ehrlich are talking about the need for alternative modes of transportation. He rightly makes the point that there's a difference between designing a city for cars, and designing a city for people. Also makes the somewhat idiosyncratic point that with transit "you could at least be having a drink on your way home":

I'm not sure a drunken commute is really the ideal we need to be aspiring toward. But it's certainly true that walking or transit is the best way to get home after doing some drinking. The main alternative, after all, is drunk driving with the attendant car crashes leading to death, disfigurement, and disability. We take a certain level of that for granted right now but driving -- and especially driving after consuming even only a drink or two -- is a pretty high-risk behavior in the scheme of things and reducing its incidence would be a major boon.

Comments

Back when I was a kid and my dad commuted on the old New Haven Line--now MetroNorth--you could have a cocktail in the bar car on the 5:15 out of Grand Central Station.

Posted by Danton | June 29, 2008 1:49 PM

Argh! Again with the italics! Make it stop!

Posted by xqjkx | June 29, 2008 1:51 PM

DUIs are an expression of popular choice: people want to drive to bars, get hammered, and drive home, and if they didn't, they wouldn't drive to bars.

In the future that will definitely come, so don't contradict me, because you're stupid and ignorant, we'll all have electric/ethanol hybrids where you'll push a button and get a martini served filtered and chilled from the tank.

Posted by Thixner | June 29, 2008 1:59 PM

I have long thought that there was a lot of analysis to be done about the social consequences of strict DUI laws. Clearly, fewer deaths counteracts any sort of down side. But it's interesting to think about what it all means for chit-chat at the occasional dinner party. In a perfect world, everyone would designate a driver and everything would be largely the same, except for a few more sober people at parties. But in my experience, I think people just leave earlier.

I might add that this held when I was living in DC. Sure, there was the Metro, but it ran so infrequently on weekends that I never even really tried.

In the meantime, didn't Paul Erlich predict that everyone would be dead by now in some sort of Malthusian disaster? Wouldn't that make density, and therefore transit, a little difficult to achieve? maybe he could just carpool with Julian Simon.

Posted by Sam M | June 29, 2008 2:01 PM

That's moronic ... fuel grade ethanol has poisonous additives as part of the process of making it anhydrous. Besides, on this blog, we drink sidecars, and you can't just imitate good cognac with 200 proof pure ethanol.

What will really happen is the development of systems embedded in the drink so that motorists no longer have to drive, but simply program their destination.

That is far more realistic than the ethanol martini.

Posted by Kixner | June 29, 2008 2:07 PM

In this respect, it's also important to have transit systems that service the bar-to-home routes quite late into the night. If we're going to sell transit in this regard, the subways can't close at 12:30 every night and the buses can't stop running at 11.

Ideally, you'd want a system that runs 24 hours. More practically, you want to convince the drinking public that it's at least likely they'll be able to catch the subway/bus on their way home so that they'll leave their cars behind (and take taxis if they miss the deadline). To my way of thinking, that means keeping things running until at least 2am.

Posted by southpaw | June 29, 2008 2:09 PM

Reminds me of an old MAD Magazine parody:

(to the tune of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"

We're taking the 5:02 tonight,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We're all lit up like a neon light
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We're on the train with the special car,
The one that features a stand-up bar
And we'll feel no pain when
We take the 5:02!

Sorry. It's true. My mind is a junkyard of useless information.

Posted by Ivyfree | June 29, 2008 2:11 PM

We take a certain level of that for granted right now but driving -- and especially driving after consuming even only a drink or two -- is a pretty high-risk behavior in the scheme of things

Matthew, you need to learn how to hold your alcohol. If one drink makes you too tipsy to drive at - what, 26? - your liver is operating significantly sub-par.

Posted by David Samuels | June 29, 2008 2:12 PM

David
With the DUI limits these days at a 0.08 in a lot of states, 2 drinks for a lot of people would put them over or near that level. It's not how you feel or how well you can hold your alcohol, it's when you get pulled over and you are tested that matters.

Posted by Cols714 | June 29, 2008 2:22 PM

My town is really aggressive about two things: promoting public transit and reducing DUIs. It often seems that they have seen the connection between the two, but in a different way than mentioned here. They see the punishment phase of a DUI conviction as means to force people into using transit. And it works. Those convicted go without driving for so long that they get used to it. Many don't bother to get their license back. And I can tell you, go a year without driving and you'll wonder why you ever wanted to drive. The bus is much less stressful and you can read the morning paper on the way to work. On the way back, you can get to that book you've been meaning to read. It's actually kind of nice. I'd even go so far as to say that there's probably a few people who bought Matt's book so they'd have something to read on the bus.

Posted by fostert | June 29, 2008 2:24 PM

Is drinking and driving the most interesting thing in Paul Ehrlich's talk?

Seems to me there are two large issues:

1. How should society and politicians deal with Scientific Cassandra's who warn of gloom and doom, but do know more than anyone else? What do we make of Paul Ehrlich's track record? Or a rephrase of the last question. How should scientific expertise and prediction influence complex societal choices?

2. How can a society ruled by politicians who need to get elected deal with long-term considerations?

Posted by cube | June 29, 2008 2:34 PM

LIRR & Metro North do both still sell alcohol on trains:
http://www.mta.info/mta/news/releases/?en=070531

Posted by TG | June 29, 2008 2:40 PM

Carl Zimmer and Paul Ehrlich are talking about the need for alternative modes of transportation. He rightly makes the point...

Who is making the point? Or is Paul a girl's name? Or Carl? Or did one of them recently do the ol' nip/tuck (nttawtt)

As an aside, we sure as shit don't listen to neocons anymore since they were spectacularly wrong. Why the fuck should anyone listen to Ehlrich?

Posted by Antecedents Uber Alles. | June 29, 2008 2:40 PM

"With the DUI limits these days at a 0.08 in a lot of states, 2 drinks for a lot of people would put them over or near that level."

Many states have a lesser charge that kicks in at 0.04. One drink can put you over, depending on your weight and the calibration of the breathalyzer. And my state treats the lesser charge the same way, anyway. It is really a lesser charge in name only.

Posted by fostert | June 29, 2008 2:44 PM

How should society and politicians deal with Scientific Cassandra's who warn of gloom and doom, but do know more than anyone else? What do we make of Paul Ehrlich's track record?
=================================================

Beat me to it. Why would anyone listen to anything Ehrlich has to say? According to him we all starved to death in the 1970s.

Posted by Campesino | June 29, 2008 2:47 PM

Strange to say, the "freedom of the open road" has also been a test-bed for tyranny. When I was a kid, my dad would slow to 15-20 mph when he drove through a small town. Most of the old speedtraps may be gone, but what we have today are heavily armed troopers with draconian powers, most of which would never have been assumed or granted in any other context.

As with most tyranny, the claim of acting in the interest of public safety has usually been false. Until the mid-90 most legislators opposed drunk-driving laws with real teeth, and were forced to enact them only by a fully mobilized public opinion.

Today I see more 'drunk driver behaviors' in a week, by cellphone users, than I saw actual drunk drivers during the 35 years I drove before the widespread use of the cellphone. Again, it seems to be impossible to get legislators to enact laws with teeth in them.

Along the way a whole subsidiary industry of drug testing, "addiction" treatment, parole officers etc etc has developed- an incredible nightmare for anyone caught in the toils, but apparently of little value in actually preventing drunks from driving again.

You live long enough, you start to think that good transit serving the nightlife districts would make you a safer and more free.

Posted by serial catowner | June 29, 2008 2:49 PM

By the way, although bar cars on Metro-North trains are less common nowadays, there are dozens of carts selling beer, wine and liquor on the train platforms in Grand Central Station. Thousands of New Yorkers drive home from their respective train stations every night after "a drink or two" on the train. I'd like to see evidence that driving in that condition is "pretty high-risk behavior" (by which I assume Matt meant the risk of injury or property damage to oneself or others).

Posted by Led | June 29, 2008 2:53 PM

I'd like to see evidence that driving in that condition is "pretty high-risk behavior" (by which I assume Matt meant the risk of injury or property damage to oneself or others).

Here's a BAC Chart for people to squabble over.

As a former EMT, I tend to view all driving as a "pretty high-risk behavior," and I think that's what Matthew was getting at as well.

Consuming alcohol is going to impair your driving ability, but the degree of risk associated with that impairment is going to depend on too many other factors (baseline ability, visual acuity, familiarity of route, prevailing speed of traffic). At some level of consumption, the impairment is basically total, but below that level the risk is still quite real. Researchers would just have a tough time teasing out the degree of risk from the complicating factors.

All that said, if you are planning to get into a heinous motor vehicle accident, I highly recommend that you get as drunk as possible. Drunk drivers have a much higher survival rate than their victims.

Posted by southpaw | June 29, 2008 3:06 PM

What on earth is wrong with a drunken commute, as long as it's done on a train?

Posted by lackluster | June 29, 2008 3:20 PM

I was working in Kiev for a few months a few years ago and used to get off work around six and go down to Maidan Nezelezhnosti to sit around, skirt watch and drink a few beers after work and was struck by the fact that every single person walking around in a suit or tie or the Ukrainian female equivilent had a half liter bottle of beer in their hands. Blackberry or cell phone pressed against one ear and a beer in the other hand.

What a country! Imagine the US like that? That would RAWK!

Posted by calipygian | June 29, 2008 3:28 PM

What on earth is wrong with a drunken commute, as long as it's done on a train?

Nothing if you're 25 and live with your buddies. If you're 42 and have kids, then coming home drunk a couple nights a week is going to lead to bad outcomes.

Posted by southpaw | June 29, 2008 3:29 PM

A drunken anything is the ideal that I aspire toward.

It's my firm belief that all technology exists in order to make being drunk easier.

Posted by Luke | June 29, 2008 3:33 PM

Mass transit investment in order to provide better drunken commutes really is a baptist-bootlegger coalition.

Posted by otto | June 29, 2008 3:45 PM

Apparently, there's no such thing as an argument for transit and density too stupid to utter. We now need transit so that "at least you can have a drink on your way home." Next up: we need transit to that Larry Craig has another place to meet men for sex.

In the meantime, didn't Paul Erlich predict that everyone would be dead by now in some sort of Malthusian disaster?

That's the nutjob, yes.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 3:48 PM

Next up: we need transit to that Larry Craig has another place to meet men for sex.

Next up from the silly boy: "we must have magic cars so I don't have to talk to people in real life."

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 29, 2008 3:54 PM

Not having to worry about driving home is something that you take for granted when you live in NYC, which is - as far as I know - the only city with such an extensive public transit system in the US.
One thing that I could never understand while visiting cities like Boston, Beijing and San Francisco, is why there is a gap between when their subways close and when the bars close. It would seem to me that the amount of money saved in deterring drunk driving would make up for running the trains a couple of extra hours a night.

Posted by justaguy | June 29, 2008 3:56 PM

Posted by lackluster | June 29, 2008 3:20 PM

What on earth is wrong with a drunken commute, as long as it's done on a train?

What on earth does a drink or two on the way home have to do with a drunken commute?

That's the DUI point, after all ... you are danger to public safety well before the stage of being drunk.

Of course, this all assumes single-mode commuting. If the commute is park-and-ride or cycle-and-ride, then its not necessarily the case that you are free to unwind with a drink on the train. You might be forced to make do with a book or DVD on a portable DVD player.

I guess that makes one more point in favor of an integrated rail/bus transport system.

Posted by BruceMcF | June 29, 2008 4:01 PM

There is so much to be said for living somewhere where you don't ever have to get behind the wheel impaired. It's actually one of the great upsides of bringing up a teenager in the city -- they can surreptitiously drink and get on the subway, bus, or cab and not kill themselves or others.

It's a pretty good deal for the parents as well.

Posted by Sir Charles | June 29, 2008 4:21 PM

What's that weird thing Ehrlich is hanging onto?

Posted by jayackroyd | June 29, 2008 4:23 PM

The whole DUI thing is bullshit. Whitey gets a DUI, he must go to re-education classes, pay lawyer bill, court fines and fees, insurance rate increases, and may even lose his job.

The minorities catch a DUI and it matters little as they usually have no insurance, no license to suspend, care little about paying fines and fees, and don't show up for the drunk re-ed classes.

The DUI check point patrols are never in the hood.

Posted by del | June 29, 2008 4:26 PM

I like the fact that the ferries in San Francisco have full bars and that you can bring booze onto Caltrain. Yeah, it can be annoying at points, but generally speaking, nobody abuses the ability to do so and having a drink on the train can be a nice end to a long day.

Posted by Mike P | June 29, 2008 4:28 PM

Yeah, del, law enforcement is really keeping the white man down. Your act would play better at stormfront.

Piss off.

Posted by southpaw | June 29, 2008 4:37 PM

Well,

One reason that cities like Boston, SF and others shut down the transit system before the bars close is in part due to histories with vandals, vomit and public disturbances in general when everyone gets out of the bars. I agree, that from a public safety standpoint, maybe it makes sense to have these systems running after-hours.

However, the risk of DUI is for people who drove to the bars in the first place. One thing about SF, Boston etc.., is they are so dense, that few people drive to their destination if they can help it, as it is expensive. When the bars actually do let out, yes, there are a lot of drunk people without public transit who need to get home, but also, a lot of intoxicated people who also do not have cars.

So they take taxis home, and this does a couple things:

A - by getting people to the bars, you reduce the # of people actually driving home from the bars;
B - you put the transit burden on these people and private companies (to clean-up any messes), and not on the tax payers.

anyone who would take the train home, likely took the train to the bar. As such, there is actually less risk of them driving home, since often times, they made the decision to

Posted by Brad | June 29, 2008 4:43 PM

One reason that cities like Boston, SF and others shut down the transit system before the bars close is in part due to histories with vandals, vomit and public disturbances in general when everyone gets out of the bars. I agree, that from a public safety standpoint, maybe it makes sense to have these systems running after-hours.

But they're not doing it, which suggests that the public health benefits, if any, would be too small to justify the costs.

As for taxis, taxi drivers don't exactly seem to be the most safety-minded drivers on the road. I wonder how taxi accident rates compare with those of teen drivers.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 4:53 PM

But they're not doing it, which suggests that the public health benefits, if any, would be too small to justify the costs.

Truly, the fact that something is not being done is great evidence that the benefits of doing it would be too small to justify the costs.

Posted by otto | June 29, 2008 5:01 PM

As the Austin Lounge Lizards observed in their song Industrial Strength Tranquilizer:

We're all bored and tired, but we all find ways to cope: Most of us drink after work - the rest of us smoke dope! It takes industrial strength tranquilizer, shot of old Crow and a glass of Budweiser, to help each working man through the working day...

Posted by RepubAnon | June 29, 2008 5:01 PM

As the Austin Lounge Lizards observed in their song Industrial Strength Tranquilizer:

We're all bored and tired, but we all find ways to cope: Most of us drink after work - the rest of us smoke dope! It takes industrial strength tranquilizer, shot of old Crow and a glass of Budweiser, to help each working man through the working day...

Posted by RepubAnon | June 29, 2008 5:04 PM

Truly, the fact that something is not being done is great evidence that the benefits of doing it would be too small to justify the costs.

Truly, what's your explanation, then?

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 5:15 PM

Well, the usual one is people with authority to make decisions don't internalise the social benefits for a variety of different reasons. So for example transit unions and/or mayors and/or influential developers have incentives to respond to their own small group interests rather than widespread gains.

You seem to be assuming a political Coase theorem that no one believes exists. Why does war happen? because Coasian bargains aren't reliable between decision-makers who can offload the costs of inefficient decision-making onto others.

Posted by otto | June 29, 2008 5:21 PM

Here in Pittsburgh the County Executive recently passed a 10% tax on alcoholic drinks served in bars and restaurants to help fund public transit. There's been a lot of outcry from bar owners and patrons, but I actually think it's a good idea. Bar-hoppers need public transit, so the 10% is like a user fee. And I would like bar owners would want a way for their customers to get home without driving -- if the bus is running, you can drink more!
Plus it seems there is a pretty inelastic demand for alcohol as bar patronage has decreased remarkably as far as I can tell.

Posted by Lauren | June 29, 2008 5:23 PM

Sorry- that should say, bar patronage has *not* decreased remarkably...

Posted by Lauren | June 29, 2008 5:25 PM

As long as white men are the most prevalent recipient of DUI charges, the penalty will remain slight.

Posted by Village | June 29, 2008 5:30 PM

Well, the usual one is people with authority to make decisions don't internalise the social benefits for a variety of different reasons.

So first, you'd have to actually show that the social benefits of "after-hours" mass transit arising from a reduction in alcohol-related harm really would be greater than the additional costs of running the system for those extra hours. Then you'd have to persuade the "people with authority" to "internalise" the social benefits in their decision-making, if that is indeed the real reason why transit systems currently shut down before the bars close.

Good luck.

(Actually, if you're really interested in rational policymaking, you'd have to show that total benefits of longer transit operation exceed total costs, and I think that would be even harder.)

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 5:33 PM

Don't need to any of the above just to refute your bizarre a priori notion that the fact that something is not being done is great evidence that the benefits of doing it would be too small to justify the costs. What the costs and benefits of the particular decision are - a subject you are now moving to - is exactly what the discussion should be about.

Posted by otto | June 29, 2008 5:36 PM

Actually, the old trolley and streetcar companies did run "drinker's specials". As the evening wore on at the ballpark or amusement park, the riders would get a little more hardcore, some of them wearing hobnailed boots, and trolleys would start running the cars they used to carry the workers to the mine or mill- with hard wood seats and hard floors that wouldn't be damaged so much by boots or drunks.

In any case, staying off the road after closing time is a good way to extend your life expectancy. (Sorry, Mixner, I don't have the facts and figures for that- I would encourage you to drive around late at night and see if it seems to be true.)

Posted by serial catowner | June 29, 2008 6:00 PM

anyone who would take the train home, likely took the train to the bar. As such, there is actually less risk of them driving home, since often times, they made the decision to

By the same token, you're not going to take the train into the city if the last train out leaves at midnight (see, for instance, the Caltrain in San Fran) and you'd have no way to get home from the bars. If you want to encourage people to take the train to the bar, you need for them to at least think they'll be able to take it back home. Otherwise, they're probably going to drive. In college, we'd always take the Caltrain to SF unless we were planning on sticking around to drink; in that case, we'd have to try to convince someone to drive us and stay sober (which had somewhat uneven results).

Posted by southpaw | June 29, 2008 6:01 PM

I tend to be amazed at how technologically backwards most journalists are, which I guess simply reflects how technologically backwards most people are. Matt doesn't seem to understand the accelerating nature of technological change. He's looking to solve the problems of the past, but by the time you do, the future has already made them different, so you end up solving the wrong problems.

First, cars in 20 years aren't going to be the same as they are now. They will be electric cars for the most partm with fully computerized drive mechanisms which will merely require us to punch in a destination, and the car will drive us there. We will be able to drink and drive, as long as we can punch in the destination. Traffic will be managed by networked computers, which will certainly reduce congestion, but also will make congestion not so bad, since you can relax and work or play while the car is getting you there, as with mass transit.

Second, electricity will be increasingly generated by non-carbon emitting sources, such as solar, and it will be getting incredibly cheap. At some point, solar technology is going to be so cheap and ubquitous it will make oil literally worthless.

Mass transit simply isn't going to fly in such an environment, because the cost of cars economically, environmentally, socially and personally, is going to be very low. The need for cities themselves is going to be low, because of advances in telecommunications and the continuing dispersion of work environments. We will slowly be returning to the village environment, with clean cars used for transportation. Now, it would be nice to have places that don't require cars, that allow for lots of walking, but unless there's an economic and environmental incentive for this, it's simply not going to fly.

The general problem with planning for the future is that people tend to base it on the past and the present, but the future is going to be very different, due to the rate of technological change. Most journalists don't understand technology, and so they just don't factor it into their liberal-arts-political-science mindset. They think of the future the way horse owners once did. They need to start thinking like science-fiction writers, but that seems flaky to them, so they stick to outmoded ideas that have little relevance to the future.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 6:02 PM

otto,

Don't need to any of the above just to refute your bizarre a priori notion that the fact that something is not being done is great evidence that the benefits of doing it would be too small to justify the costs.

Well, actually, I said "suggests that," not "is great evidence that."

But keep those strawmen responses coming.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 6:10 PM

At some point, solar technology is going to be so cheap and ubquitous it will make oil literally worthless.

Somehow, and to some extent, ironically, I dont think we are going to make fertilizer with solar. Oil is so valuable for things other than transportation that future generations are going to curse us for burning it in our planes and cars.

Posted by calipygian | June 29, 2008 6:15 PM

Doesn't even suggest it - not one bit.

Posted by otto | June 29, 2008 6:16 PM

Actually, the old trolley and streetcar companies did run "drinker's specials".

Some bus systems still do, in the form of night buses. The problem is that they tend to run very infrequently, serve only a limited set of routes, take forever, and, predictably, many of their passengers are drunken people engaging in loutish behavior. Along with the odd vagrant, drug-dealer and other unpleasant characters.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 6:17 PM

Mixner, people have the amenities they're willing to pay for.

If you want to live in a house with a 30 year old kitchen, and that suits you, you live like that. If you want a kitchen with a Wolf Stove and industrial freezer, you pay the money for that, regardless of whether it provides any kind of economic benefit.

Cities can choose whether they want to pay for late-night metro services if such services create the sort of city they want to live in. It's not primarily a question of whether they consider it to get a good return on investment.

You, for example, are happy with cities being run down and ghetto and full of squalor. Others might be willing to pay to live in a place with more amenities which is cleaner, more efficient, and has more transit services. You can live in Akron. The rest of us will create places that are more civilized and liveable.

Posted by Tyro | June 29, 2008 6:28 PM

Tyro,

Cities can choose whether they want to pay for late-night metro services if such services create the sort of city they want to live in.

Cities are not choosing to do that. At best, they provide a bare-bones late-night transit system that is not an attractive alternative to cars. Unless by "late-night" you mean 11pm or midnight, which probably isn't what most bar and club-goers consider "late."

You can live in Akron. The rest of us will create places that are more civilized and liveable.

Er, in case you hadn't noticed, people are abandoning old, denser cities like Akron for new, sprawling cities like Atlanta and Houston and Phoenix.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 6:41 PM

Southpaw wrote:
"By the same token, you're not going to take the train into the city if the last train out leaves at midnight (see, for instance, the Caltrain in San Fran) and you'd have no way to get home from the bars. If you want to encourage people to take the train to the bar, you need for them to at least think they'll be able to take it back home. Otherwise, they're probably going to drive. In college, we'd always take the Caltrain to SF unless we were planning on sticking around to drink; in that case, we'd have to try to convince someone to drive us and stay sober (which had somewhat uneven results)."

I agree that in cities where parking is relatively cheap, this is the case. However, in cities with mass transit, most of the hot spots to hang out are not in suburban strip malls (sorry for those (Mixner) who think Chili's Bar & Grill is a great place to hang out). As such, people actually (gasp!!!) go out with the full knowledge that they are going to be taking a cab home.

Posted by Brad | June 29, 2008 6:44 PM

otto,

Doesn't even suggest it - not one bit.

Do let us know, then, when you have that study showing that the benefits of after-hours transit would exceed the costs, that cities already know this, and that the reason it's not being done is because it's being blocked by transit unions, influential developers, or the other things you proposed.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 6:46 PM

"He's looking to solve the problems of the past, but by the time you do, the future has already made them different, so you end up solving the wrong problems."

Yeah, but you're doing the same thing - presupposing what the future will bring based on the present. By your logic government planners in the 1950s should ahve read speculation about what the year 2000 would bring - flying cars and the like - and decided that expanding the interstate highway system would be a waste of time because the future would make it irrelevant.

Posted by justaguy | June 29, 2008 6:48 PM

Brad,

However, in cities with mass transit, most of the hot spots to hang out are not in suburban strip malls (sorry for those (Mixner) who think Chili's Bar & Grill is a great place to hang out).

I suspect that Brad is an urban hipster in the same sense that the Olive Garden is an italian restaurant.

As such, people actually (gasp!!!) go out with the full knowledge that they are going to be taking a cab home.

Not terribly likely if they live 20 miles away in the suburbs. You do know that not everyone who goes to those hip nightspots that are always turning you away lives in the city itself, don't you?

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 6:56 PM

As such, people actually (gasp!!!) go out with the full knowledge that they are going to be taking a cab home.

This is true enough if you live within the range of a reasonable cab fare. It's less true if you live in San Carlos and you're heading up to San Francisco, or if you live in Southern New Jersey and you're coming down to Philadelphia. In those situations, public transit or sober drivers are really the only viable options (you just put your car in a lot).

Posted by southpaw | June 29, 2008 6:58 PM

MADD has lobbied to get rid of drinking on the Metro North and LIRR lines.

Posted by Kolohe | June 29, 2008 7:02 PM

If it is not clear from the above post - the reason people do not drive into town to go out is because:

A) Parking is expensive;

B) If they want to leave early, they can take the transit home (and save having to go back the next day to get their car).

C) If they leave late - they can split the cab fare with a buddy (since people actually live pretty close to each other making being dropped off in a central location fairly easy).

Posted by Brad | June 29, 2008 7:02 PM

Some of the cheapest and most convenient drinking to be done here in Tokyo, in a country with more rail than just about anywhere on earth, is in the train stations and on the trains.

Posted by semiautodiadact | June 29, 2008 7:09 PM

Some of the cheapest and most convenient drinking to be done here in Tokyo, in a country with more rail than just about anywhere on earth, is in the train stations and on the trains.

Posted by semiautodiadact | June 29, 2008 7:11 PM

First, cars in 20 years aren't going to be the same as they are now. They will be electric cars for the most partm with fully computerized drive mechanisms which will merely require us to punch in a destination, and the car will drive us there.

I remember that future. Disney did a little animation about it back in May of 1958 called "Magic Highway, U.S.A." Google it sometime. There are YouTubes of it out there but they keep getting yanked.

We could look forward to having all that wonderful automatic car and highway technology by...oh...1975.

Posted by Bruce Garrett | June 29, 2008 7:11 PM

Er, in case you hadn't noticed, people are abandoning old, denser cities like Akron for new, sprawling cities like Atlanta and Houston and Phoenix.

Phoenix is growing denser, and once-abandoned neighborhoods near the city center are filling in and gentrifying. At the same time, the more exurban communities (like Maricopa) are experiencing reductions in demand, higher sale/abandonment rates, and in some cases population decreases.

I don't know the other two cities from Nairobi, but anecdotal evidence (re: conversations I've struck up with tourists) suggest similar trends in Houston and Denver.

What Mixner is saying would totally accurate if this were 2002, but in 2008 it's indicative of someone out-of-touch with current trends.

Posted by scythia | June 29, 2008 7:13 PM

Bruce Garrett,

20 years is very optimistic, but by the middle of the century I expect that fully-automated, driverless cars will be common, if not ubiquitous. The technology for fully-automated cars driving in urban environments, obeying traffic signals, avoiding pedestrians and other vehicles, etc. already exists and was demonstrated last year in the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 7:24 PM

scythia,

Phoenix is growing denser, and once-abandoned neighborhoods near the city center are filling in and gentrifying.

Like many other cities, Phoenix is undergoing a revitalization of some of its inner-city areas, including some new upscale housing. But that is only a small part of the city's total growth. Phoenix grew by 200,000 people between 2000 and 2006, and the vast majority of those new people moved into traditional suburban-style single-family homes or low-density apartment complexes. Not urban lofts or high-rises in the inner-city.

At the same time, the more exurban communities (like Maricopa) are experiencing reductions in demand, higher sale/abandonment rates, and in some cases population decreases.

Here's the list of annual growth rates for the 258 cities listed by the Census Bureau, as of June 2007. Gilbert, a distant suburb of Phoenix, is at number 5. Peoria, another distant suburb, is at number 7. Chandler is at 16. Phoenix itself is at number 30. All the Phoenix suburbs appear to be in the top 100. Not a single one of them has experienced negative growth.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 7:50 PM

Here in Chicago, the major commuter rail lines all allow booze to be consumed on the trains. In fact, I think it is permitted any time day or night! Only the longer routes have bar cars, however. To make up for this, one of the watering holes in Union Station sets up a special rush hour beer/wine stand at the top of the escalator so you can quickly get a drink as you get near the train.

A problem with encouraging drinking by train commuters is that many of us drive to the train station, and thus would be getting into a car after knocking back one or two on the train.

Luckily, I live walking distance from the train station (and damn near everything else -- a virtue of my suburb), but I can see why MADD would oppose bar cars.

Posted by Chris | June 29, 2008 8:07 PM

Gilbert, a distant suburb of Phoenix

Thanks for the data (and the pleasant tone of the response) but that's a misread of the map. Gilbert is sandwiched in between Chandler and Mesa, two very large and pre-existing communities. Likewise, Peoria is not a distant suburb, but really just the northern half of Glendale.

The growth of these communities is not an example of sprawling out, but filling in.

The key places to look at when talking about Phoenix expanding are the communities outside the freeway loops. In particular, I would pay particular attention to Queen Creek in the SE, Litchfield Park in the West, North Scottsdale (past the 101) in the NE, and East Mesa past Power Rd.

At the height of the real estate/low gas price boom, these communities were the ones adding new homes into former desert--and they were in very high demand. Checking the real estate markets for these areas will give you a clear assessment of whether PHX is expanding or contracting geographially.

As far as exurban growth rates declining, this is what I was talking about.

I grew up in AZ, and watched Phoenix expand seemingly into infinity. In the early part of this decade, everybody I knew who moved relocated further away from the center of the city, unless economic limitations forced them in. Now, everybody I know who's relocating is moving back towards the city center, including to neighborhoods which were ghost towns a decade ago.

Whether this is a momentary hiccup or a lasting trend remains to be seen, but the direction of PHX is inward, not outward.

For obvious reasons, statistics lag behind what they measure, and from a distance you might not see this turn into quantifiable data for a few years.

Posted by scythia | June 29, 2008 8:13 PM

but I can see why MADD would oppose bar cars.

IMO, MADD will only be happy if drinking is outright prohibited. They already have made 0.08% the limit, increased the enforcement of DUIs and increased the severity of punishment for DUIs (along with creating a major social stigma for a DUI) But still they continue on their crusade.

Posted by JordanT | June 29, 2008 8:18 PM

Posted by otto | June 29, 2008 5:21 PM

Well, the usual one is people with authority to make decisions don't internalise the social benefits for a variety of different reasons. So for example transit unions and/or mayors and/or influential developers have incentives to respond to their own small group interests rather than widespread gains.

Just focusing on developer interests would give a good first approximation of policy choices. Change the federal capital gains roll-over for property development so that the sheltering is limited to the same number of acres as the development where the capital gain was made, and you would see a strong shift toward policies in which cities supported infill development.

Posted by BruceMcF | June 29, 2008 8:33 PM

scythia,

The growth of these communities is not an example of sprawling out, but filling in.

Then you have a strange definition of "sprawl." Phoenix and its suburbs are classic sprawl cities. Large houses on wide streets. Massive decentralization of employment, retail and recreational facilities. Little or no public transportation. Almost total dependence on private motor vehicles for effective mobility. There is no sign that any of this is going to change. True, a new light-rail system is scheduled to start operating in Phoenix at the end of the year, but it is so limited that it could not possibly replace more than a tiny fraction of car trips.

If you're merely making the trivial point that additional development within a city whose boundaries have already been fixed will increase the average population density for that city, that's probably true. But it obviously doesn't mean that density will become sufficiently high to support large-scale mass transit or "walkable communities." Whatever "filling in" is taking place in Phoenix, it just means there are fewer patches of undeveloped land dotted around the city, not that it's shifting from car-oriented sprawl to transit-oriented density.

As far as exurban growth rates declining, this is what I was talking about.

You're talking about a new bedroom community far away from Phoenix that has recently been hit by the double whammy of the housing bubble and rapid increases in gas prices. According the Census Bureau, its population grew from 1,660 in 2000 to 30,518 in 2006. Even after the dust settles from the housing bubble and the gas price increase, Maricopa will almost certainly have far more people than it did just eight years ago.

Posted by Mixner | June 29, 2008 8:48 PM

Er, in case you hadn't noticed, people are abandoning old, denser cities like Akron for new, sprawling cities like Atlanta and Houston and Phoenix.

They are abandoning Akron because it's Akron, which was well worth abandoning forty years ago when I left it and is far more so today. Given me a call when more worthwhile old, dense cities like San Francisco show net outflow.

Posted by idlemind | June 29, 2008 9:53 PM

Er, in case you hadn't noticed, people are abandoning old, denser cities like Akron for new, sprawling cities like Atlanta and Houston and Phoenix.

There's no transit, lots of sprawl, little density, no interest in spending money on public infrastructure. What's not to like? Akron is the run-down ghetto of public squalor that you idealize.

Posted by Tyro | June 29, 2008 10:17 PM

let us know, then, when you have that study

And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs.

"No proof necessary for me, no proof good enough for thee" -- Mixner's Law.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 29, 2008 10:21 PM

That's a big selling point of all the condos going up around the North Hollywood terminus of the LA subway -- you can drink in Hollywood but live in North Hollywood without getting arrested for drunk driving.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 29, 2008 10:30 PM

Posted by idlemind | June 29, 2008 9:53 PM

They are abandoning Akron because it's Akron, which was well worth abandoning forty years ago when I left it and is far more so today. Given me a call when more worthwhile old, dense cities like San Francisco show net outflow.

Ultimately, that is living in the same fantasy frame of the issue as Mixner. They are not abandoning Akron because it is a public transit dream, or because it is a public transit nightmare ... they are abandoning Akron because there are no jobs. Heck, Hoover, headquartered in North Canton, shut down last year.

By and large, Americans will move to the places where the jobs are, and if that means driving because single-use zoning guarantees that the jobs will not have housing nearby, and there are no dedicated transport corridors that run between the government-regulation-created residential areas and the government-regulation-and-subsidy-created employment centers, they will drive.

And despite the fact that there is a heavy layer of government regulation mandating driving in the "new sprawl" cities that Mixner points to, he will continue to use that as evidence of "people choosing sprawl".

If there was strong growth in jobs in Akron, people would be moving to Northeast Ohio for those jobs. If local zoning and development channeled them into sprawl development, that's where they would end up, and if it channeled them into infill development, that's where they would end up. But the point is moot, because the jobs aren't there.

Posted by BruceMcF | June 29, 2008 10:48 PM

Justaguy and Bruce Garrett,

"Yeah, but you're doing the same thing - presupposing what the future will bring based on the present. By your logic government planners in the 1950s should ahve read speculation about what the year 2000 would bring - flying cars and the like - and decided that expanding the interstate highway system would be a waste of time because the future would make it irrelevant."

"I remember that future. Disney did a little animation about it back in May of 1958 called "Magic Highway, U.S.A." Google it sometime. There are YouTubes of it out there but they keep getting yanked...We could look forward to having all that wonderful automatic car and highway technology by...oh...1975."

This is what I mean by technological ignorance. People just don't keep up with what's going on in the science, in the actual development of these kinds of things. They remember people from the 50's making exagerated predictions, and they think that invalidates the actual progression of technology. The problem is, there's a difference between uninformed speculation unfounded in technological reality, and real projections based on the real facts of how these technologies are actually progressing.

People who predicted flying cars had no idea what the technology would be that would make them fly. It hadn't been developed. It was just a fantasy, based on the loose idea that, wow, now we have cars, and now we have airplanes, why shouldn't we be able to combine the two, as if that's how technology develops? Whereas the basic technology for creating automatic cars is already in place. It just has to be refined and developed into a mass product. That should take less than 20 years, I used that number simply as a benchmark for the time in which such technologies should be moving into the mainstream. The problem with not taking these things seriously is that we don't prepare the infrastructure needed to make them come into being much sooner, because we are spending all our time trying to solve problems based on old technology, rather than using developing new technology in a rational way.

Obviously the flying car was not on the brink of development in 1950. Nor was the automatic car. We didn't even have computers that could fit in a car back then. Now we have all that technology in place, it just needs to be put into development. 20 years should do it. In 20 years, computers will be at least a million times more powerful than they are now, just as our computers are a million times more powerful than they were 20 years ago. Cars are already computerized. What they could be like in 20 years is hardly imaginable, but automatically controlled is probably the least of it.

As for the electric car, again, the technology is growing by leaps and bounds. Battery life and capacity is growing exponentially, and costs are falling dramatically. There are dozens of new battery technologies on the near horizon, including high level capacitors that have the potential to store enormous amounts of energy without loss. These are not far-flung dreams, they are developing realities. Likewise, there are at least a dozen new solar technologies in development, each one of which could change the world forever. It's likely that several of them will pan out in the very near future, and it would be much sooner still if more money and manpower and public policy were devoted to them. That so many people have no capacity to evaluate this, but just write it off as some kind of nutty dream is sad, because the collective weight of that much ignorance really does affect public policy and private investment.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:22 PM

"And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs"

You could take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"driverless cars". for an overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car

Here's an article about a driverless car already developed and tested:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1205-driverless_car.htm

Here's an article about how some "fringe" corporation that calls itself General Motors says that driverless cars could be available for sale within a decade:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22529906/

Of course, they also mention that the real obstacle is not technology, but politics, regulation, and infrastructre development. All of which won't be handled properly when people think this is all some kind of crazy dream.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:39 PM

"you could at least be having a drink on your way home" turns into the hyperbole of "I'm not sure a drunken commute is really the ideal we need to be aspiring toward."

WTF? I think the point that was being made is that a commute is a nice, relaxing affair which you don't have to be activity paying attention to the travel.

Irrespective, to leap from 'a drink' to 'drunken commute' is highly simplistic & binary.

Posted by BC | June 29, 2008 11:42 PM

"And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs"

You could take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"driverless cars". for an overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car

Here's an article about a driverless car already developed and tested:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1205-driverless_car.htm

Here's an article about how some "fringe" corporation that calls itself General Motors says that driverless cars could be available for sale within a decade:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22529906/

Of course, they also mention that the real obstacle is not technology, but politics, regulation, and infrastructre development. All of which won't be handled properly when people think this is all some kind of crazy dream.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:42 PM

The Mexican and Central American illegals are awful poor drivers while drunk. They seem to kill an awful lot of pale faces while trying to navigate well paved 1st world roads in non-insured autos.

Where's the outrage?

Posted by joe | June 29, 2008 11:44 PM

"And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs"

You could take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"driverless cars". for an overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car

Here's an article about a driverless car already developed and tested:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1205-driverless_car.htm

Here's an article about how some "fringe" corporation that calls itself General Motors says that driverless cars could be available for sale within a decade:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22529906/

Of course, they also mention that the real obstacle is not technology, but politics, regulation, and infrastructre development. All of which won't be handled properly when people think this is all some kind of crazy dream.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:45 PM

"And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs"

[I can't seem to post the links in this article straight, without triggering some anti-spam mechanism, so I'm adding some astericks in front of each link to post. Just copy the link, without the astericks, into your browser)

You could take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"driverless cars". for an overview:

******http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car

Here's an article about a driverless car already developed and tested:

*******http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1205-driverless_car.htm

Here's an article about how some "fringe" corporation that calls itself General Motors says that driverless cars could be available for sale within a decade:

******http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22529906/

Of course, they also mention that the real obstacle is not technology, but politics, regulation, and infrastructre development. All of which won't be handled properly when people think this is all some kind of crazy dream.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:49 PM

"And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs"

[I can't seem to post the links in this article straight, without triggering some anti-spam mechanism, so I'm adding some astericks in front of each link to post. Just copy the link, without the astericks, into your browser)

You could take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"driverless cars". for an overview:

******http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car*****

Here's an article about a driverless car already developed and tested:

*******http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1205-driverless_car.htm*****

Here's an article about how some "fringe" corporation that calls itself General Motors says that driverless cars could be available for sale within a decade:

******http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22529906/*******

excert: "Where it shakes out remains to be seen but there is no question we see a lot of potential there," said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Of course, they also mention that the real obstacle is not technology, but politics, regulation, and infrastructre development. All of which won't be handled properly when people think this is all some kind of crazy dream.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:54 PM

"And let us know when you have that study showing that by 2028 we'll all be driving magic cars from our McMansions in the exurbs"

[I can't seem to post the links in this article straight, without triggering some anti-spam mechanism, so I'm adding some astericks in front of each link to post. Just copy the link, without the astericks, into your browser)

You could take a look at the Wikipedia entry on
"driverless cars". for an overview:

******http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car*****

Here's an article about a driverless car already developed and tested:

*******http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/1205-driverless_car.htm*****

Here's an article about how some "fringe" corporation that calls itself General Motors says that driverless cars could be available for sale within a decade:

******http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22529906/*******

excert: "Where it shakes out remains to be seen but there is no question we see a lot of potential there," said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Of course, they also mention that the real obstacle is not technology, but politics, regulation, and infrastructre development. All of which won't be handled properly when people think this is all some kind of crazy dream.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:55 PM

jeez, sorry for the quadruple post. I kept getting a server timeout message that made it look like it wasn't posting because of the links. Hope driverless cars work better than the internet.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:58 PM

idlemind,

They are abandoning Akron because it's Akron, which was well worth abandoning forty years ago when I left it and is far more so today.

No, they are abandoning Akron because it's an old, dense rust-belt city. Just like they're abandoning Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Chicago and most other such cities. A few big northeastern cities are holding on, but most are losing population. The one big exception is New York City, which has grown significantly because it's a magnet for immigrants. The overwhelming majority of growth is occurring in the sprawling new car-oriented cities of the south and west, in states like Texas, Nevada and Arizona, and in southern California.

Given me a call when more worthwhile old, dense cities like San Francisco show net outflow.

I'm calling. Are you there? As reported by the Census Bureau, the population of San Francisco declined from about 777,000 in 2000 to about 744,000 in 2006. A loss of about 33,000 people, or about 4.2% of the city's year 2000 population.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 1:38 AM

Actually, fertilizer is very easy to make with just water, air, and a LOT of electricity.

To make ammonia feedstock for nitrate fertilizer, the usual process (Haber or its descendants) uses petroleum or natural gas to get methane to make hydrogen, but you CAN produce all the hyrdrogen you want via electrolysis now. The rest of the process only involves

See, however, all the usual arguments about how achievable the "hydrogen economy" actually is... but in theory, it's pretty easy. Most of the other components of inorganic fertilizer (phosphates, potassium, etc) don't come from

Posted by Nate | June 30, 2008 2:38 AM

Actually, fertilizer is very easy to make with just water, air, and a LOT of electricity.

To make ammonia feedstock for nitrate fertilizer, the usual process (Haber or its descendants) uses petroleum or natural gas to get methane to make hydrogen, but you CAN produce all the hyrdrogen you want via electrolysis now. The rest of the process only involves

See, however, all the usual arguments about how achievable the "hydrogen economy" actually is... but in theory, it's pretty easy. Most of the other components of inorganic fertilizer (phosphates, potassium, etc) don't come from

Posted by Nate | June 30, 2008 2:39 AM

My rate of acceleration has consistently increased, so th-[SPLAT]

Posted by Mixner Jumping Off The Empire State Building | June 30, 2008 3:11 AM

Posted by Nate | June 30, 2008 2:38 AM

See, however, all the usual arguments about how achievable the "hydrogen economy" actually is... but in theory, it's pretty easy.

Well, not all the usual arguments ... the ones about the energy lost storing hydrogen under pressure and the fact that its the hardest gas to keep from leaking, those don't really kick in if the hydrogen is consumed to make ammonium.

Posted by BruceMcF | June 30, 2008 3:33 AM

"No, they are abandoning Akron because it's an old, dense rust-belt city. Just like they're abandoning Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Chicago and most other such cities. A few big northeastern cities are holding on, but most are losing population. The one big exception is New York City, which has grown significantly because it's a magnet for immigrants. The overwhelming majority of growth is occurring in the sprawling new car-oriented cities of the south and west, in states like Texas, Nevada and Arizona, and in southern California."

Someone else has pointed out that the population losses of rust belt cities are caused by the deindustrialization of the US and the consequent loss of jobs. The economic growth has been in the suburban sprawl towns. Also, sprawl itself generates economic growth, someone has to be hired to build the houses, staff the shopping malls, provide services to the new residents, etc. What other big industry is there in the Phoenix area other than real estate? Incidentally, the economy in New York City, which has bucked the population loss trends of other northern cities, has been come increasingly dependent in recent decades on real estate, with the activity showing in higher costs rather than sprawl. New York experienced its deindustrialization in the 70s, earlier than with the rest of the country, when the city's population dropped by a million.

For both New York and Phoenix, in different ways, this is pretty much basing your urban economy on a ponzi scheme, you need new residents to keep coming in (or a greater fool to buy the overvalued apartment, in Manhattan) to keep the economic engine running.

Posted by Ed | June 30, 2008 6:25 AM

Re: As a former EMT, I tend to view all driving as a "pretty high-risk behavior," and I think that's what Matthew was getting at as well.

If we're talking about things that can get you killed, biking, walking and riding public transit are in that category too.

Re: They are abandoning Akron because it's Akron,

Well, no. They are abandonning Akron because there are no jobs there (which is why I left Akron for Florida back in 2003). By the way, Akron was not an especially dense city. Most of the neighborhoods consist of single family homes complete with yards. And the public transit (buses and only buses) there sucked.

Posted by JonF | June 30, 2008 6:51 AM

The Roches tuned into this NYC phenomenon 30 years with an immortal lyric about sitting next to a guy on the train who's: "Drinking two beers and reading the New York Post." Unfortunately I can't remember any of the rest of the song.

Posted by j cheever | June 30, 2008 8:25 AM

fostert said:

"probably a few people who bought Matt's book so they'd have something to read on the bus."

I bought his book cuz I had a wobbly table.

Posted by Stewie | June 30, 2008 8:27 AM

One of the cool things about the internet is that you can start with a post about how you won't get a DUI while you're riding the bus, and the next thing you know some guy is talking about driverless cars. This is a real improvement over the old days, when you had to pay a quarter for a magazine to read such stuff.

And who knows, maybe the $500 billion a year we're spending on war would really pay for a driverless car system.

Or maybe the guy dreaming about driverless cars should be in padded room cutting out paper dolls. Last time I checked, we were about a twentieth of the world population, using about a quarter of the world resources. Is that supposed to go on forever just so people too clueless to even drive a car can still buy one?

Well, more power to you. But I'm guessing that when people realize that having children won't make any sense unless AGW is dealt with, we're not going to be hearing much more about driverless cars.

Posted by serial catowner | June 30, 2008 8:28 AM

Hah, this is hilarious! Mixner just called Detroit "dense". The city ripped up its streetcars way back in the 30s. It is anything but dense, and always has been, which is exactly why it is what it is today. Surely Mixner can lie better than this can't he? I mean I know conservatives like to lie, but come on?

Posted by freddiemac | June 30, 2008 9:38 AM

Posted by Ed | June 30, 2008 6:25 AM

Also, sprawl itself generates economic growth, someone has to be hired to build the houses, staff the shopping malls, provide services to the new residents, etc. What other big industry is there in the Phoenix area other than real estate?

... but note that the growth driver (aside from the traditional MIC, which is not to be ignored in Phoenix) is the available finance for the sprawl development. And in the end, paying for growth out of the expected asset inflation resulting from the growth ended up being a bubble, so that finance might be trickier to organize in such a massive scale in the next few years.

As a larger share of the income flows to support the sprawl system are diverted overseas to pay for the fuel, the opportunities for local areas to gain export-substitution benefits from transit-corridor oriented development will increase. And since the sprawl suburbs exist, much of that opportunity involves retrofitting suburbs for TCOD.

Posted by BruceMcF | June 30, 2008 10:06 AM

You realize Ehrlich isn't talking about drunken commuting right? It is entirely possible to be able to drink and not get drunk.

Posted by notchris | June 30, 2008 10:48 AM

Mixner, I notice you use xxxx-2006 data when it suits some arguments (2000-2006 or 1976-2006 or whatever) and you use 2007-2008 data when it suits other arguments.

For example, when someone says 'the airlines are tanking' or 'the exurbs are shrinking' you use data up to 2006, but when someone says 'cars suck up too much gas,' lo' and behold, you wake up to the realization that there are, in fact, some recent trends.

I think it's weird.

Posted by mike | June 30, 2008 11:33 AM

Everybody tore up their streetcars in the '30s, because the increase in car traffic made it impossible to run street level trains. San Jose now has dedicated light rail running at street level but they isolated it from car traffic and gave them their own signals.

I'd love to see that stuff come back, but here in, say, Chicago, you'd have a hard time squeezing a train back into Clark St.

Posted by dbt | June 30, 2008 12:22 PM

Someone else has pointed out that the population losses of rust belt cities are caused by the deindustrialization of the US and the consequent loss of jobs. The economic growth has been in the suburban sprawl towns.

And your point is....? The new jobs are being created in places like Phoenix, not in places like Pittsburgh (or Akron), because people want to live in Phoenix and they don't want to live in Pittsburgh.

What other big industry is there in the Phoenix area other than real estate?

According to city-data.com, major industries in Phoenix include aerospace, electronics, chemicals, financial services and tourism.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 12:25 PM

fredduemac,

"But I'm guessing that when people realize that having children won't make any sense unless AGW is dealt with, we're not going to be hearing much more about driverless cars."

I guess you didn't read the rest of my point, about new technologies in alternative energy, like solar, which are not only the only hope for solving AWG, but are almost certainly going to solve AWG? Ah, yes, this must be more "dreaming" again. THis is exactly my point. Otherwise intelligent people throughout the world say things like this because they, and more importantly the media, are blissfully ignorant of what is going on in technology these days, and what this means for our future - not centuries away, but over the next 20-30 years. Politiicans and public planners pretend that technology will remain pretty much the same, with marginal improvements, when something else entirely is going on. This is even stupider than ignoring AWG, which is frankly less supported by the facts than the trends in technological development itself, including solar tech and driverless cars. Not that AWG is unsupported by any means. I hope you get what I'm saying.

Posted by conradg | June 30, 2008 12:28 PM

Bruce McF,

As a larger share of the income flows to support the sprawl system are diverted overseas to pay for the fuel, the opportunities for local areas to gain export-substitution benefits from transit-corridor oriented development will increase. And since the sprawl suburbs exist, much of that opportunity involves retrofitting suburbs for TCOD.

You can't "retrofit" sprawling suburbs for transit. You'd have to tear them down and rebuild them from scratch at a much higher density, and with a fundamentally different road layout. The only feasible transit system that can provide broad coverage in such developments is bus routes running along the major streets. But unless your trip starts and ends on a single route, which is unlikely, you're going to have to take two or more buses to get from your origin to your destination. It's just not remotely competitive in time and convenience with making the same journey by car.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 12:47 PM

freddiemac,

Mixner just called Detroit "dense". The city ripped up its streetcars way back in the 30s. It is anything but dense

According to Wikipedia, Detroit has about 6,400 people per square mile. This is more than twice the population density of Phoenix, and a little less than twice the density of Houston, Dallas and Atlanta.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 1:00 PM

====================
jeez, sorry for the quadruple post. I kept getting a server timeout message that made it look like it wasn't posting because of the links. Hope driverless cars work better than the internet.

Posted by conradg | June 29, 2008 11:58 PM
====================
Exactly.

Technology always works exactly as planned...or not.

I fondly remember the days when people said things like "That's what the computer says, it must be true."

GM couldn't figure out that the floor was about to fall out from under their prime revenue generators, has consistently fought mpg targets, and chuckled at those japanese electric cars. Why are their predictions on this point of value?

But the real question is this: Why is a future of exurbanized populations with driverless cars one that should be actively sought? Just wait til future Kevin Mitnicks start running squadrons of these things through your backyard.

Posted by Sparkatus | June 30, 2008 1:18 PM

Why is a future of exurbanized populations with driverless cars one that should be actively sought?

People seek a suburban/exurban lifestyle because it allows them to have things they value highly: big houses, open spaces and the comfort, convenience and flexibility of travel by car. The advantages of driverless, automated cars include convenience, safety and efficiency. The benefit of being to just get in your car, tell it where you want to go, and then sit back and let it do the rest without you having to worry about it seems pretty obvious to me.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 1:45 PM

And the silly blinkered glibertarian boy once more begs the question.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 30, 2008 4:16 PM

"Why is a future of exurbanized populations with driverless cars one that should be actively sought?"

What Mixner said.

To add, because we don't live in a socialist economy where a few people at the top tell us what is supposed to be best for us. People want the freedom and flexibility of automobiles. The criticism of them is that they are wasteful, expensive, bad for the environment, and bad for our economy foreign policy in that they keep us dependent on foriegn oil imports. All valid criticisms. If solar generated electricity, electric cars, and driverless automation eliminated most of these problems, we are left with few reasons to object to the popular preference for automobiles as our primary form of transportation. It seems that some people want to make sure that these problems don't get solved, so that we can have an excuse for getting rid of automobiles and building more mass transit. What exactly is the point of mass transit if most of the problems of privately owned an operated automobiles are solved?

Posted by conradg | June 30, 2008 5:43 PM

It seems that some people want to make sure that these problems don't get solved, so that we can have an excuse for getting rid of automobiles and building more mass transit.

'It seems'? Weasel words. Never mind that the Happy Jetsons Future Brigade have nothing to offer in terms of the failings of planning based around cars rather than human beings.

Automobiles are not your fucking masters, even if they are often gathered under the biggest American flags in the land. It seems that some people would mortgage their children to keep getting their fix.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | June 30, 2008 6:04 PM

pseudonymous in nc,

Okay, I'll remove the "it seems" from my sentence. There actually are people who don't want to solve the problems of our current petroleum-fueled automotive transport system, because they prefer a world of happy mass-transit bunnies hopping from one wonderful bus/train/trolley to the next in an endless series of time-consuming and incredibly inhospitable adventures that use up all our time and energy in the name of what exactly? It certainly isn't global warming such people care about, or energy independence, etc. They just want everyone to live in a certain collectivist way, and if they don't like that, fuck 'em, and fuck 'em hard.

Posted by conradg | June 30, 2008 6:54 PM

conradg,

Apparently, pseudo in nc wants to know why we think people should seek things they value, such as larger housing and convenient transportation, instead of things they don't.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 6:59 PM

Re: The new jobs are being created in places like Phoenix, not in places like Pittsburgh (or Akron), because people want to live in Phoenix and they don't want to live in Pittsburgh.

???
I don't think that's the way it works. Most companies don't give a damn where their employees want to live. They locate their facilities where they think it's best to do so for a mixture of business reasons. And while we're on the subject who in their right mind wants to live in Phoenix?I suspect the Devil would find some of the circles of hell more temperate in the summer. Tucson-- maybe. It's in the mountains and the climate is more berable. But Phoenix is like LA, smog and all, shoved into a crematorium.

Re: According to Wikipedia, Detroit has about 6,400 people per square mile.

Wikipedia is on drugs then. I've been to Detroit numerous times (grew up near there). Large areas of the city have been outright abandoned, with wildlife coming back to live in the weeds and saplings. Even the populated areas have a ghost town look and feel.

Re: People seek a suburban/exurban lifestyle because it allows them to have things they value highly

Mixner, can't you qualify that as "SOME people"? Not everyone likes those things. And as far as I am concerned, To each their own too. But don't pretend that everyone agrees with you on this. You've been hanging here long enough to know that's not the case.

Re: To add, because we don't live in a socialist economy where a few people at the top tell us what is supposed to be best for us.

Oz called: they're missing their strawman. There are very few economies like that in the world, and none in the advanced civilization we call the "The West".

Posted by JonF | June 30, 2008 7:20 PM

JonF,

I don't think that's the way it works. Most companies don't give a damn where their employees want to live. They locate their facilities where they think it's best to do so for a mixture of business reasons.

So, apparently, you think the availability and quality of a workforce is not a "business reason."

And while we're on the subject who in their right mind wants to live in Phoenix?

Apparently, lots of people. 200,000 new people just since 2000.

Wikipedia is on drugs then. I've been to Detroit numerous times (grew up near there).

Ah, right. Who to trust: Wikipedia's numbers sourced from the Census Bureau, or JonF's unsubstantiated assertions and childhood memories? It's a tough call.

Mixner, can't you qualify that as "SOME people"?

The overwhelming majority of people. Hence, the explosive growth of the sprawling new car-oriented cities of the south and west, and the demise of the dense old transit-oriented cities of the northeast.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 7:44 PM

We don't live in a society where a few people at the top tell us what to do? I dunno, it seems to me that they've been getting away with it so far.

Whatever. I used to think a car meant freedom too. Of course, in those days there were almost no traffic cops, and cars had front bench seats and shifters on the tree.

But hey, I guess you could still get some thrills in a driverless car- if you played a driving game on the video screen. Or maybe you could watch a movie on the way to the movies. Yup, the possibilities for fun seem almost endless.

Posted by serial catowner | June 30, 2008 7:55 PM

Final Girl weighs in on killer cars.

Posted by serial catowner | June 30, 2008 8:06 PM

Conradg: To add, because we don't live in a socialist economy where a few people at the top tell us what is supposed to be best for us.

JonF: Oz called: they're missing their strawman. There are very few economies like that in the world, and none in the advanced civilization we call the "The West".

Exactly my point, which is why the idea that we should go against the wishes and desires of the people, who have clearly voted at the polls and with their pocketbooks in favor of personal automotive transportation rather than collective mass transit, should be discarded. In a democracy, as opposed to an authoritarian socialist regime, we should respect the wishes and desires of the general populace, and look for ways to make them compatible with the health and prosperity of the nation, and the world at large. If that were not possible, we should tell them so, but we should not be pretending that these problems cannot be solved, in order to steer society towards some end that for personal reasons we think they ought to move towards.

The fact is, energy indendence and cheap, clean, and abundant electricity is well within our reach as a society, if we choose to go down that road. In fact, we are going down that road, albeit a little slower than we could be, because so little investment is being put into such things, when we clearly ought to be prioritzing such things for every reason in the world, not just to preserve our automotive transport system. Likewise, there's no reason why we should have to shelve our automotive industry and infrastructure when it can simply be transformed in a safe and environmentally clean way into an electic car system, which requires no great changes to our present system, and allows us to preserve the personal autonomy and convenience that Americans value so highly. If you don't value it, fine, but don't pretend that the vast majority feel the same way. Is it really worth postponing or thwarting the development of a global solar energy industry that can replace petroleum or coal based sources simply to keep alive the hope of mass transit in this country? Are you really that daft?

Posted by conradg | June 30, 2008 8:13 PM

Serialcatowner,

I agree that people tell us what to do more than I'd like. I also like the convenience of driving my own car. But to be honest, the thrill of driving doesn't much turn me on. I'd much rather be doing something else while traveling. Hence, I actually like that aspect of mass transit - that I don't have to drive, and can read a book, carry on an undistracted conversation, and yes, play games or work or whatever you like. Since when is that a bad thing? But I could certainly be much happier doing any of those things as I please in my own private space, rather than being stuffed into a bus or other mass transit vehicle which won't go where I want, but only to a predesigned route, and the whole anonymous nature of the venture suppresses most of what we'd actually like to be doing.

There is of course always the option of turning off autopilot and driving the car yourself when the fancy takes you. Which I doubt will be often in the course of commuting to work or shopping. But out on the open road as in car commercials, where most of us never actually go, it sure does look like fun. And for what it's worth, electric cars are actually much more fun to drive than fueled cars, in handling, acceleration, and all around comfort.

Posted by conradg | June 30, 2008 8:27 PM

Re: In a democracy, as opposed to an authoritarian socialist regime, we should respect the wishes and desires of the general populace, and look for ways to make them compatible with the health and prosperity of the nation, and the world at large.

I don't know that I agree we should make things that are bad ideas easy for people, no matter how many people are inclined in that direction. I dislike authoritarian command structures, but I'm OK with subtle carrots toward good practices and (very) subtle incentives against bad practices. I'm on record here as oppsing both Matt's anti-car jihad and the extremists who think we should all live in exurban McMansions ruled by fascist HOAs where the shubbery is tended by guys named Pedro. Cars of some sort will always be with us, and I won't be junking mine any time soon even if I am biking to work these days. But isn't life better if your commute is, say, five miles rather than thirty? IMO, the most precious reource we have is time, and time spent sitting in a car in traffic is time needlessly wasted no matter how cheap gas is.

Posted by JonF | June 30, 2008 10:13 PM

JonF,

I don't know that I agree we should make things that are bad ideas easy for people, no matter how many people are inclined in that direction.

He didn't say that. He said "we should respect the wishes and desires of the general populace, and look for ways to make them compatible with the health and prosperity of the nation, and the world at large." I'm not sure why you would object to that, or want to exclude the general populace's wishes and desires regarding housing and transportation from it.

I'm on record here as oppsing both Matt's anti-car jihad and the extremists who think we should all live in exurban McMansions ruled by fascist HOAs where the shubbery is tended by guys named Pedro.

Strawman. I haven't seen any "anti-car jihads" from Matt. Just a lot of really bad arguments for more mass transit. Likewise, no one has suggested that "we should all live in exurban McMansions." You're attacking positions no one has taken.

But isn't life better if your commute is, say, five miles rather than thirty?

Other things being equal, yes. But other things are not equal. Longer commuting distances are a tradeoff many people are willing to make in order to have bigger housing and other benefits arising from low-density development. If you personally don't want to make that tradeoff, fine. You can live in smaller housing closer to where you work.

IMO, the most precious reource we have is time, and time spent sitting in a car in traffic is time needlessly wasted no matter how cheap gas is.

The average commute by public transportation takes almost twice as long as the average commute by car. New York, the most transit-oriented state in the country, also has the longest average commute time in the country.

Posted by Mixner | June 30, 2008 10:45 PM

There can't be good living where there is not good drinking. - Benjamin Franklin

Posted by Owen | June 30, 2008 11:45 PM

Apparently, the silly glibertarian boy doesn't know the difference between projection and corroboration, of willingness and gritted-teeth necessity. That's what happens when social phobia metastasises into a cracked crypto-philosophy.

The silly glibbot also seems to think that current trends last forever, regardless of the underlying circumstances driving them. There are large areas of the US dotted with architectural refutations of that asinine premise, and beyond the nation's borders, countless more examples of, for instance, what happens when you build in the middle of the fucking desert.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 1, 2008 1:56 AM

Who is this slick poseur, pseudonymous in nc? He's got nothing but convoluted phrasing to hide his sheer ignorance of science and technology. People build in deserts because they can. End of story.

Posted by conradg | July 1, 2008 5:00 AM

Ah, go and wank off to your cyborg Randroid dreams.

People build and settle in deserts because they think they can, and that holds right up until the point that they can't. Things go south fairly quickly once that point is reached. So I'll just laugh at your juvenile attempts to call rank, and suggest you read up on what used to be called the 'Great American Desert'.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | July 1, 2008 8:29 AM

pseudonymous in nc,

Yes, people do things until they can't. What genius. If they can't live in deserts, they won't. Right now they can. Looks like they will continue to do so for some time to come. Do you really feel confident predicting the future, when you clearly have no knowledge about these things? And driverless cars are not cyborgs, dude. We're not talking Kurzweilian Singularity here, just easily predictable technological progress. If you knew what you were talking about, you'd show some vague sign of it. Instead, you prefer cynical, willful ignorance. Do a little research.

Posted by conradg | July 1, 2008 1:22 PM

conrad,

Cynical, willful ignorance is all pseudonymous in nc ever has to offer, about anything. He's mad as hell at the world and he's not going to take it any more.

Posted by Mixner | July 1, 2008 11:10 PM