But that said, I always thought of sprawl as something people do to maintain social difference.

I mean, isn't that the whole idea, people deciding that they don't want to be in a community with such-and-such other people, they don't want to see those people or be neighbors with those people or sit next to those people on the bus and they definitely don't want those people's kids to go to school with their kids.

So they withdraw their tax base out to the suburbs and make it as difficult and expensive for such-and-such people to get in.

I think half the things on that list would be considered pluses by the sprawl people. And the other half, along with the real estate market and the price of gas, just puts a limit on how much social difference they can afford. A bright red, shameful, humiliating limit, which chafes at their upper-middle-class aspirations.

• Sprawl destroys farmland, replacing productive acreage with an asphalt-capped, runoff producing, soil-scouring polluted mess.

• Sprawl destroys community, as it encourages (requires is more like it) people to drive to obtain their daily needs, taking them (and their money) away from their neighborhoods.  The biggest part of the "bowling alone" phenomenon that Putnam describes is the time people spend commuting and driving all over to get their basic needs met, rather than participating in civil society where they live.

• Sprawl destroys local business, as all business gets channeled to the most efficient community destroyers, the big boxes that only exist thanks to sprawl.

• Sprawl destroys health, first by replacing human powered motion with auto-powered motion with the concomitant rise in obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.  Second, by slaughtering tens of thousands of Americans annually is grisly accidents that--just like George W. Bush's coffins from Iraq--are kept off the front pages and off the TeeVee.  It's no "accident" that TeeVee and the local papers--totally dependent on auto-advertisers--never show you the human costs of our annual sacrifice on the altar of automobility; third, by destroying air quality--carbon free energy is not particulate free, or ozone free, or SOx free, or NOx free, it's just carbon free.

• Sprawl relentlessly destroys wild places, as an automobile-sick society constantly propels people to seek escape from what, at some level, they recognize as awful; seeking that respite from autotopia, people move further and further into wild places ... bringing their cars with them!

Municipalities should keep a tight leash on the spread of development.
Since I can totally agree with the "infrastructure maintenence angle"

Catch being, generally those who advocate against sprawl, advocate FOR "Smart Growth".

Pretty much, what their whole angle is, is to reduce driving.

And while good city planning is useful
You are never going to get the jobs to be where the housing is.
So a commute is going to be a reality regardless.

Sure you could say that someone should use public transportation to do that commute.
But for the mainstream I reject this concept.

Why? Because electric cars give the potential to avoid the the pollution factor.
(With Hybrids, and Clean diesels getting us halfway there)

Now, I do encourage public transport for one usage.
When congestion becomes and issue, (and parking) suddenly public transit begins to make sense.

_

But overall, while it would be ideal to have "smart growth" and walkable neighborhoods.

I believe this falls firmly into the "wants" category.

Rather than "needs".

Global Warming and Peak Oil NEEDS to be solved.

Redefining American society is not neccisary.

_

Pretty much, I look at this as kind of like corn ethanol.

Marginally beneficial.
But logistically a nightmare.

-David Ahlport

I propose you figure a way to make it so that people can commute better.

One suggestion I've also seen is to make telecommuting on the train better.

The Lockheed "Yellow bike" program is rather ingenous.
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:LtFvzKA-KM0J:www.svmg ...

As well as Zipcar.
http://www.zipcar.com/about/

_

In general, you can improve commutes.
But you can't really remove them.

_

But in general, it just seems to be the line of logic of:

Driving = Oil
Oil = The Devil
Driving = The Devil

Me, I don't see anything inheriently evil with cars that don't pollute.

-David Ahlport

One suggestion I've also seen is to make telecommuting on the train better.

An alternate -- and more flexible -- idea would take the standardized-shipping-container idea and apply it to human-transport. One's personal "car" would be a standard-dimensional wheel-less box into which he could climb and seal himself. Inside would be office equipment with high-speed wireless connections, food and water, and space-station-type vacuum-assisted toilet facilities. To travel, one would call a service-provider who sends a robot-vehicle to pick up the box and deliver it to a destination.

Flying would be accomplished the same way: the box would simply be stacked with others in the bay of a cargo plane, with live people inside of the boxes.

Greyflcn doesn't "see anything inheriently (sic) evil with cars that don't pollute". JMG has already indicated above some of the many ways in which automobiles cause environmental problems other than through tailpipe emissions.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Has anyone noticed that customer service jobs have been telecommuted?  To India and the Phillipines.  Now engineering jobs are following the customewr service outsourcing model.

While the bush folk served their friends in the big monopoly communications industries, cable tv, phone, cell phone, internet access, and broadcasting.  Other nations have leapt ahead.

Bush wacked hitech and helped move jobs offshore (with tax breaks to do it)where everyone makes a fifth of what workers make here, or made.

I wonder how much halliburton got in subsidies for moving to dubai?

Check out how much vonage charges for extra phone lines.  Despite all the impediments put in the way, the old telephone companies are finally dying a much deserved death.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

I just want to add that some people don't mind commuting. I actually enjoy the opportunity to listen to the radio or just think during my 25-minute drive. As long as one focuses on the road, there are no other expectations. No obligation to multi-task or get something else done. When I'm driving, no one can can expect anything else from me.

As far as other traffic is concerned, I generally start work later than everyone else and go home later than everyone else. No need to build wider roads if people stagger their work hours. This saves tax dollars for other purposes.

JMG has already indicated above some of the many ways in which automobiles cause environmental problems other than through tailpipe emissions.

True, but that was a false argument.

Roads and Commerce won't suddenly vanish because of modern Amish living.

And as far as the runoff goes.
Thats just a sign on improper infrastructure design.

-David Ahlport

I've been in and around Atlanta many times. My extended family lives around there. (My gramma lives in Jonesboro, which used to be a distinct town but is now a suburb of Atlanta, like so much of the surrounding area.) Driving in that area is a nightmare, the worst I've seen anywhere in the country save maybe Boston. There's some great stuff in Atlanta, some remnants of the old city it used to be, but in general I'll confess I find the area horrific. It's like a generic strip mall cancer started in Atlanta and threatens to take over the entire state of Georgia.

Anyway: I've enjoyed your comments. You're right on about heeding how messages play in the South. And you're right on about the class issues that infuse discussions of sprawl, urban living, etc. -- but are rarely discussed directly. So keep it up!

grist.org

I like being able to get a parking space no matter where I roam.

I like discount warehouse shopping.

I like building no more than 3 stories tall.

I don't like small cramped streets and 100 year old moldy apartments, and ancient infrastructure.

That's why I like Kent East Hill.

Atlanta has quite a car/sprawl culture going, but there are pockets of decent green experimentation going on. Emory and GA Tech have some remarkable alternative transportation programs - I'd love to see their data. Hopefully someone will do a write-up after the pilots go through - could be good test cases for greening the South.

They also sing songs about bikes, which you may like less. Although, you could mount steer horns on your handlebars, like that new 'Killer's' video.

Sorry to hear you had a divorce, never pleasant although I've often seen it turn out to be for the best. It sounds like you've used your freedom to get away from the cramped, 100 year-old, moldy, ancient infrastructure of unhappily married life.